Before the Dawn
by Binary Star
Summary: When the Sith attack Telos, Dustil Onasi learns what it takes to survive.
1. Chapter 1

Before the Dawn

_By Jedi Boadicea and Arabella_

_Authors' note: KotOR is the property of LucasArts and BioWare. KotOR II is the property of LucasArts and Obsidian Entertainment. We're just dipping into the story because it's so damn cool that we can't help ourselves._

_A huge thank you to our beta reader, Tim Radley. You can find him in our favorite authors page.  
_

1.

It was a school day. There was nothing remarkable about it. Dustil whined powerfully, as he always did, when his mother dragged him out of his dark, warm bed and towed him, still whining, into the kitchen. He grumbled through his breakfast, surly and exhausted; when he complained that he was too tired to go to school, his mother snorted and told him that it was his own fault for staying up past his bedtime and sneaking down to the sublevel to play with the flight simulator until three in the morning. And when Dustil protested that he had done no such thing, his mother grounded him point blank, and for a period of one month, for lying.

"WHAT?" he shouted in disbelief, his mouth half full of food. A month – grounded for a _month_ – it was the worst horror he could conceive of. "You weren't going to ground me for staying up late, so why bother grounding me for saying I didn't?"

"Staying up late was a choice you made that affects only you." His mother stood at the worktop, fitting his lunch into his satchel, her eyes furious – as they had often been, in the weeks since his father had last come home and then vanished again into the Republic fleet. Dustil had tried not to think too hard about how his father had acted on his last leave, how empty his eyes had looked, how violent his voice had sounded, and how frightening his silences had been. He hadn't seemed like his father at all.

Dustil still wasn't sure what had caused the change, and his father certainly hadn't explained anything. Not to him.

"If you want to hurt your_self_," his mother went on tightly, "go right ahead. But lying hurts others. Deliberate misinformation can cause great harm. It's the mark of a coward, Dustil, and your father would be very disappointed."

Coward. It was the very worst humiliation. Dustil's face burned, and his fists clenched, one around the metal of his spoon. It cut into his palm; he gripped it tighter. "Yeah, well?" he said furiously. "Who cares? It's not – it's not like _he's_ ever here to find out what I do."

"You know that he can't be."

"Yeah, _whatever_."

"Dustil Carth O_na_si."

She said it very quietly, and it worked. It always worked. Dustil didn't know why, but whenever she used the full name, he felt the heat drain out of him. He knew it was because of his middle name – his father's name – that he suddenly felt like a little kid – which he wasn't. He was thirteen, and in three years, he'd be a soldier too. Or at least, he'd be in training. He looked down at his spoon and tried to get the fire of his anger back. He wanted to rant, to protest again that it wasn't fair, to get her to lift the punishment, or at least cut it back. And then it occurred to him that he'd be better off going for a really good apology – those tended to change her tune a lot quicker.

"Mom… I shouldn't have lied. Don't… don't ground me. Come on."

She turned calmly from the worktop and put his satchel on the table in front of him. "You know the rule," she said. "A punishment is a punishment."

"But –"

"No buts. Try using some of this energy to talk yourself out of the crime next time, rather than putting all your effort into avoiding its consequence."

"But –" he tried again frantically. The bargaining couldn't be over so soon – there had to be a _way_.

"You heard me. Now put that on and go, you'll be late for school."

"But _Mom_, a _month_–"

"No, Dustil. Give me a hug."

Dustil gave her an incredulous look. He wasn't going to hug her – for grounding him, for ruining his life. He threw down his spoon, knocked back his chair, made a vicious grab for his satchel, and nearly dropped it in surprise.

It was really heavy.

"What am I having for lunch?" he demanded angrily, marching toward the door. "Rocks, or something?"

"Yes, Dustil. You're having rocks."

His mother always thought she was so funny.

"Ha _ha_." Dustil stopped in the doorway with his back to her and slung the satchel over his shoulder, glaring at his shoes.

His mother sighed. "Your emergency pack is in there," she said, and now there was no humor in her voice. Dustil thought she sounded angry – maybe with him, still. "You're to give it to your teacher as soon as you get to the classroom. Don't trade the supplies or mess with the blanket or eat the food I've put in there. And _do not touch_ the stimulants, do you understand me? Those are for medical _emergencies_."

Dustil didn't have much interest in the stimulants, but he decided to eat all of the food at lunchtime. That would show her. He pushed open the door.

"Don't I get a hug, really?"

Dustil heard her ask it, but he didn't turn around. He was angry, and defeated. He wanted to punish her, for punishing him. He went down the steps and onto one of the long, clean, quiet pathways of the military colony, half a mile from the school where the Telosian soldiers' children went, day after day, all of them returning to homes that were either motherless or fatherless so long as the Republic army was engaged. Not that it was really so bad. Dustil hardly thought about it, most of the time. Not really. Not if he could help it.

"Dustil."

He heard quick footsteps on the stairs behind him, and felt his mother's arms take him from behind. She bent her head and rested her cheek on his hair. She held him close for a long moment and kissed the crown of his head. She smelled like soap and sleep and breakfast, and she was warm.

"I love you," she said. "Learn something today. Make good choices."

Dustil looked both ways to make sure none of his friends were walking past. He didn't really need to get pegged as a mother's boy.

"Yeah, okay," he said quickly, more to get her off him than anything else. "Love you too, Mom – bye." And he wriggled away and hurried forward, casting just one brief look back. She stood at the bottom of the stairs, the weak sun lighting the waves of her dark hair, still a sleepy mess on her shoulders, her eyes lonely and grave and full of pride at the same time, her smile soft and steadying in her tired face. That image caught in Dustil's mind like a holo, though he didn't realize it, and later he was very glad he'd said he loved her. Glad he had turned back.

She lifted her hand and waved. Dustil half-waved back and turned away.

And never saw her again.

The first crack sounded like thunder.

"It's gonna rain," said Vrosh Ruckso, and he glanced out the classroom windows, but only for a moment. He was concentrating very hard on two things: ignoring the history hour, and anchoring the long ends of two blonde braids to his desk without alerting their owner to his activity. Dustil, who sat beside Vrosh, was watching the mission unfold with interest. Bellamy Beal was fun to annoy. Mostly because she was pretty, especially when she got upset. Not that Dustil ever would have said so out loud.

Vrosh, who was wonderfully destructive by nature and whose father specialized in starship repair, knew quite a bit about constructing useful devices from scrap and had already ensnared one of Bellamy Beal's blonde braids, sliding a long, magnetic anchoring pin underneath the binding she used to keep the hair together and slowly – oh, so slowly – revolving the pin down into a firm anchorage through the alloy surface of his desk. His braid-trapping plan was not elaborate, but it didn't have to be. It didn't matter that Bellamy would be able to get the braid over the head of the pin once she figured out what was going on – it was just going to be funny when she got up and tried to walk away.

Vrosh was working on the second braid now, but having a harder time getting the pin's point to bond appropriately. Dustil could see Vrosh's computer unit flickering faintly, probably from the magnetic interference.

"Stupid pin," Vrosh whispered, as he worked.

The second crack of thunder got Dustil's attention, and he turned his eyes to the wide-paned windows that lined the west wall of the classroom. It was odd, he thought, that there weren't any clouds. The sky was piercingly blue; what had been a weak sun this morning had risen to glaring height. It was a crisp, cold, sunshiny day, and it really didn't look like rain. But then, did there have to be rain, for there to be thunder? He was pretty sure he'd learned the answer to that, at one point, but he hadn't paid enough attention to remember what it was. Or maybe it was just some malfunction in the colony's atmospheric regulators.

"Dustil Onasi."

Dustil's head snapped toward the front of the classroom, where Master Teskra, their Bothan teacher, stood at the podium, holo-remote held still in his clawed hand, watching him narrowly. The golden fur was flattened in irritation along his forehead.

"Yes, sir," Dustil said quickly.

"Are you paying attention to the lesson, Mr. Onasi?"

"No, sir."

The class smothered a group burst of laughter. Bellamy Beal flicked her eyes, very briefly, across the row, and gave him a swift, pink-cheeked smile. Dustil promised himself to be more obnoxious from now on, if that was the reward.

"I'm sure you think you're very clever, Mr. Onasi," Master Teskra began, and his fur flattened even further, "but unless you have an excellent reason for your inattention, you will be the cause of a surprise exam, no 'pad access, which will be visited upon the entire class in five minutes."

Now the class did not smother their reply, which was a groan of protest. And now there was no pink-cheeked smile from Bellamy.

Dustil acted fast. "I was actually – well, I was actually _won_dering something about school," he said, "but the truth is, it wasn't about this class – I'm sorry. I was looking outside, because I heard the thunder, and I got distracted because the sky is blue – I don't see any clouds, so it seemed like there shouldn't be thunder." He sucked a breath and went on. "So I asked myself, do there have to be clouds, for there to be thunder? And I know we've learned this before, but I can't remember the answer. But can you tell me, Master Teskra, because I – I'm really curious."

His classmates exchanged furtive glances of hope.

Dustil prayed he had pulled it off.

Teskra's ears pricked up in apparent surprise – and then his eyes narrowed speculatively – and then… slowly… they widened. On a human face, Dustil would have sworn it looked like fear.

There was another crack of thunder. Closer, this time. Much closer.

"Class," said Master Teskra slowly, the fur on his cheeks standing out now in tufts as his eyes drifted to the window and his nostrils twitched. "I want you to remain very calm."

Every single student tensed and sat forward, alert.

"Please raise your hands if you have _not_ provided an emergency pack – I realize they are not due yet for three days."

A smattering of hands went up, and those attached to them looked suddenly terrified.

Dustil reached down and touched the satchel that sat on the floor beside him, to make sure it was still there. He hadn't given it to his teacher this morning, but he hadn't broken into it as planned, either, and suddenly he was very glad of that. His blood felt hot and sharp and fast; his ears seemed to be amplifying things. He was ready – for what he did not know. He wondered if this was what his father meant when he talked about a rush of adrenaline.

"All right." Master Teskra set the holo-remote down on the podium with a soft click. Dustil had never seen their temperamental Bothan teacher act so calm. "I'll need to step into the corridor and assess the situation, but I'll be _right back_. If anything – no." He shook his head. "You know the drills, class. In fact – right now. All of you. Activate your desk shields."

A few students scrambled to press the right buttons. Others stayed frozen. Dustil could not tear his eyes from the window, through which the sky was losing its sharp blue definition. A haze was coming into it. Something both orange and black. Its strange light fell into the classroom and made every desktop reflect like flame, casting fire shadows across a litter of frightened faces. And then there was a noise, like something humming just beyond the holoboard behind Master Teskra, until the hum became the sound of air grinding, until the sound was deafening, a toneless, terrible blare of something about to hit – a world about to crack – until the air went suddenly, deathly silent, like a cord had been cut.

"I said _now_," said Master Teskra sharply, a bark sneaking into his Basic. It was the last thing Master Teskra ever said.

The holoboard exploded, and so did half of the ceiling. Master Teskra was smashed before Dustil's eyes, along with the front row of his classmates, who did not even have time to scream.

But the rest of them did. The noise of real human terror rose up around Dustil for the first time in his life, twenty voices together, swarming in a kind of chaos he had never known, rising through the broken ceiling and into a red sky full of dark and distant ships and the crimson rain of laser fire. Dustil looked up at the ships, and, inside his mind, there opened up a cool, strange place that he had never known was within him, a place that was utterly in order. He knew the world was ending, but he felt a deadly calm.

Never again would he misunderstand what war was.

"Vrosh," he barked. "Get her braid off of there."

Bellamy was screaming. She could not leave her desk. She could not get her hair free. Those students who had not been crushed had bolted in all directions; it was just the three of them in this rubble.

"We have to _get out of here_," shrieked Vrosh.

"Not until you do what I said." Dustil was steady – he did not know how – as he reached down, swiftly slung the satchel onto his back, and secured it. "They're not going to hit the same place twice in two minutes, there's no point – and anyway, it's just the school, it's not the base." He didn't know where the words were coming from. He checked the sky again – still no Republic ships. Perhaps they had all been blown up by the Sith.

He smothered the thought with willpower like a fist. His father was not dead. His father would come for them. Until then, he would keep himself together.

Vrosh's fingers fumbled and shook and Bellamy sobbed, pulling at the end of her braid with both hands until it ripped away from the pin – which had truly anchored itself at last – with a dry, splitting sound, leaving two inches of shorn blond hair pegged to the desktop. She began to run, still sobbing, through the wreckage of their classroom, until she tripped in the rubble and stumbled down between a chunk of jagged wall and a wide-eyed corpse, where she suddenly slumped and went still.

"She's dead," screamed Vrosh, tears coursing down his face, still working to free the tiny bit of braid that remained, though it no longer mattered. "She's dead, she's dead, I killed her –"

"She isn't dead. Leave that alone." Dustil quickly picked his way through the ruined chairs, gray dust kicking up in swirls around him, the hair on his arms rising in the static of discharged shields. Beyond the broken wall and piles of still shifting debris that ringed what was left of their classroom, much of the remaining school was on fire, its naked structure of beams exposed by the blast. Duraplast walls were melted into foreign shapes, several pockets already shattered into gray and black pieces like liquid sculptures suddenly frozen and then fractured. Smoke billowed into the sky, thick and black.

The far end of the school had taken the brunt of the blast and was almost entirely flattened, a wasteland without survivors except for a few desks at which students had managed to put up their shields in time. A hundred yards away, Dustil could see those few horrified students, releasing themselves from the protective shields and staggering blindly away. His own classroom had been at the other end, a one-story projection from the rest of the taller building, which had collapsed into itself. It was the only reason he was still alive.

Dustil dropped down in the rubble beside Bellamy's limp body and drew a deep breath through his nose – and nearly gagged. He never forgot – never, for the rest of his life – the smell of exactly what had been scorched. All those things that were not supposed to burn.

Vrosh was right behind him, and Dustil instinctively knew why. Vrosh had no idea where to go, and he thought that Dustil did.

He grabbed Bellamy's wrist. It had a pulse. He turned her face to the side and held his hand over her nose. She was breathing. She didn't need a medpac, she needed a jolt – something to wake her. Dustil shook her shoulders and called her name. He rolled her over onto the corpse that lay beside her and gave her face a sharp smack. For one awful moment, as his palm collided with her cheek, the cool inside his mind nearly snapped and gave way to a howling. Had he truly just rolled over the unconscious body of one classmate onto the dead body of another? It was impossible. It was impossible.

There was no time.

"Get into my bag," he said, and his voice surprised him. It had only recently broken and lowered; now it sounded almost adult. "Get the packet of stims out of the emergency pack my mom made."

His mother. His house. It was half a mile away. What if she was –

"Do you know how to use them?" Vrosh asked, his voice trembling badly.

"Just get them _out_." Dustil was not about to admit that he'd never used stimulants before in his life. He only knew he had to wake Bellamy up and get her out of here; he couldn't leave her. The fire was burning closer all the time. He felt Vrosh's shaking hands fumbling along the cords of his satchel, panicked in their search, until finally Dustil heard the rustle of something being ripped open.

"There." Vrosh sniffled as he handed over the packet and wiped his wet face on his sleeve. "Which one are you going to use?"

Dustil read them, and tried to remember what they were for. His father had shown him this, and he had not paid attention. He hadn't paid attention to lots of things. He had a feeling that he was going to regret every single lapse in focus.

He unwrapped one of the stims on impulse and put it into the cargo pocket at the side of his trouser leg, and then he tore the sterile wrapping from a second one and hoped that he was making the right choice. He had once been given a med shot by one of his friends' mothers, after falling off a speeder in a neighborhood race and scraping along ferrocrete for several very painful yards. He remembered it being stuck into his thigh.

He pushed up Bellamy's skirt to expose the top of her leg, which was soft enough to remind him of what it was and make him blush, even under the circumstances. He sucked a breath and pressed the nose of the pressure cylinder to her flesh. He depressed the plunger, forcing the pale blue, softly glowing fluid into her limp leg. It was the weirdest thing he had ever done.

Bellamy's body twitched once, violently, and Dustil felt the cold fear that he had made the wrong decision. But then she slackened again, and moaned for her mother, and her eyes fluttered open. Behind Dustil, Vrosh let out a long, shuddering breath.

"Help me pick her up."

Vrosh obeyed, and the two boys grabbed their classmate, one taking each side, picking her up under the arms and setting her on her feet. She was heavier than she looked, but Dustil tried not to show the strain, and when she was standing upright again, her eyes came into focus. She got her balance and gazed around, rubbing her thigh where Dustil had punctured it, so much in shock that for a moment she didn't seem to know what she was seeing. But her breath hitched when her eyes fell on the corpse that had just been beneath her, and tears slipped down her face.

"Now… what happens?" she whispered.

Dustil didn't know the answer, but he knew he was the one most likely to come up with it. His gaze swept the sky, and the cold fear returned.

The ships which must have struck them were back, swift and dark, and rapidly descending.

Dustil wondered, in a painfully detached way, just how many capital ships might be hovering beyond his vision among the stars, raining these shadows and this fire down on them.

Landing craft had broken the lower atmosphere; the noise of ship engines drowned out the sounds of the crackling fire, the rattle of still crumbling walls, the snap and fry buzzing of ruined electrical equipment.

The roar of the Sith was deafening.

"We need to get underground _now_." Dustil could not take his eyes from the ships. They were bigger than the Republic ships. Blacker. More terrible. Not far off, there was another clap like thunder and a distant whistle of laser energy, which meant that not far off there was another explosion into chaos and fear. And the ships were still landing.

"Your house," said Vrosh frantically. "The garage, it's underground at your house."

Dustil wanted nothing more than to go to his house. "No, it's too far – look at the ships, they're on _top_ of us."

Vrosh let out a low cry.

"The gymnasium," Bellamy murmured, barely moving her mouth. "But the… entrance is probably… gone."

"Let's do it." Dustil headed across the ash pits of their wasted school, leading his two companions around the pockets that were still aflame, searching for what had used to be the stairwell underground into the athletic facilities, because there was no doubt in his mind that there would be nothing left of the turbolifts. He soon realized that he wasn't going to find it – that it had surely been glutted by debris – and that the entire gymnasium had probably filled with earth and breakage anyway, when the school had exploded and caved in. They would have to leave school grounds and find the nearest housing complex that was still standing.

Before he could give the direction, the earth quaked, throwing Dustil to the ground. He got a mouthful of ash and spat it out in a frenzy, trying not to think about what it was likely made of.

He was barely on his feet when the ground shook again – and again – and it did not stop. All three of them buckled to the ground, and there was no point in rising. As the black smoke began to dissipate, Dustil realized what was happening.

A wave of Sith drop ships had landed, surrounding them like a swarm of a thousand moths. They were everywhere – on the flattened school, on top of the crushed housing complexes, eclipsing the once-sterile paths of the military colony. They had bombed the area flat, and now it was nothing but an enormous landing strip, razed and smoking beneath an endless army of shining, armored black. There was nowhere to run.

"What are they going to do to us?" whispered Vrosh.

"Kill us," murmured Bellamy, who was still crying, though her voice was steady and she did not move at all. The tears flowed steadily, like a thing apart from her shock.

"Both of you lie down," said Dustil, before he'd thought about it. "They're not here for us – they don't know who we are. Shut your eyes. Don't move, don't speak, I don't care what happens. No matter what I do. You got that?"

Vrosh swallowed hard, wiped his nose again, and sniffled frantically.

Bellamy blinked slowly at Dustil. "What do you mean, no matter what you do?"

"I mean, you play dead," Dustil commanded. "And if anyone comes along – if anything needs doing – _I'll_ do it. Don't either of you move, for any reason, unless – unless someone picks you up, and then you can fight. Do you understand me?"

Neither answered.

"Do you _understand me?_"

He knew that he sounded like his mother and his father, rolled into one. He heard it, and it both surprised and frightened him.

Vrosh darted a glance toward the nearest ship, from which a ramp was already being lowered, toward the ruined ground. Someone would be coming out of it at any moment. Vrosh barely mumbled an "Okay," and then he dropped to the ground and curled into a ball, silent.

Bellamy's eyes were on the lowering ramp. "I'm never going to see my house again," she said quietly. And then she gently lay down, rolled onto her stomach, and buried her face in her arms.

Dustil lay down on his stomach facing in the opposite direction, his head near their feet, his chin touching the burnt ground and his hands braced near his shoulders, ready to push off and jump to his feet if he needed to. He kept his eyes open. He watched the ship's black ramp touch the ash and soil of what had been his school, just ten minutes ago.

Ten minutes. There was no grasping that. He knew that it could not have been longer, but he did not understand how, in just ten minutes, life had become unrecognizable. It was such a short period of time. Maybe it was a dream. It was ludicrous, like dreams were.

Except he knew that it was real.

The ramp had just completed extension when Dustil saw a figure emerge from the ship, followed by another, and then another. All were swathed in black and dark gray robes that seemed to seep into the thick smoke in the air around them, blurring their edges, making them look like they had risen from the destruction itself rather than descending from a starship. In their hands they held the gleaming hilts of… nothing. There were no blades, in the hilts. Still, Dustil snaked out one hand along the black ground until he came to something sharp and jagged, some beam of broken metal that had peeled from the school in the explosion. He closed his hand around it. It wasn't a vibrobalde, but it wasn't nothing.

The figures were murmuring. They drifted away from the ship and toward the place where Dustil lay between his classmates, and as they came closer, he could hear that two were male, and one female. Eventually he could make out what they were saying.

"… unfortunately they all seem to be dead. Those fools were not supposed to destroy the schools. Darth Malak will be displeased."

"It was Darth Malak who ordered that the surface of the planet be annihilated. I believe his words were that Telos is the target, and not to discriminate."

"And yet he does want to collect all possible recruits, as does Lord Revan, I'm sure. We were not to eliminate schools until they had been swept for sensitives."

"It hardly matters. There will be other planets."

"True…"

"And regardless, the children at a school of this type are too old to train. Any of this age that have not already been identified and tested cannot be sensitive enough to do us good."

The woman laughed. "You spent too long on _Cor_uscant," she said mockingly. "Your mind works too much like a Jedi's. We do not need babies, Eltar. We do not need a lifetime to oppress the passions. We need ever so much less time to fan the flames of emotion, to draw passion _out_. I believe a nest of volatile teenagers has the potential to be very useful. What a pity this one was snuffed out. Ah well – as you said. There will be other opportunities."

They walked very close, picking their way over the short maze of fallen walls, sweeping their eyes carelessly over the dead. Dustil forced his hand to relax on the shorn metal spike he had grasped, and he made himself close his eyes, though he wanted to keep the strange, robed figures in his line of sight. They were close enough now to notice that he was awake, and he could take no chances.

"Some of these children must have lived."

"They've run away, if they've got brains."

"They won't get far."

There was a pause. "No." The woman sounded like she was smiling. "They will not… Orthon, will you look at that…"

There was another pause and Dustil got the distinct, horrific sensation that three pairs of unkind eyes were resting on the back of his neck.

"How interesting," said a man with a slow, amused voice. "The only intact corpses at this end of the blast, I see. When all the rest is rubble and ash. It makes one wonder if they are truly dead."

Dustil's heart slammed against the earth.

"I suppose there are ways of finding out," said the woman, who sounded like she found it all very funny. "Shall I, or would you like to do it?

"Amuse yourself. Only remember we do not have much time, we must break orbit before the Republic ships arrive. But if there is a sensitive among them –"

The woman laughed harshly. "Of course there isn't," she said. "I feel nothing from these three but fear."

"Nor do I," said the man. "Dispose of them however you like. Come, Eltar."

Dustil heard two sets of footsteps grow distant as a third pair drew closer. Something hard and cold touched the top of his forehead. He could barely breathe. The hard, cold thing tapped his head once, and then again. Softly. As if to wake him up.

"Stand up, little one," said the woman quietly. "Do not make me ask again."

Dustil was too terrified to stir. He thought of his father – the war hero, the great soldier of the Republic – and he tried to find that kind of strength within himself. But there was only fear, as the woman had said, and the shame that came with it. There was only a voice, deep in his gut, that begged him to survive.

He did not want to die.

"I see you breathing, child… and were I blind, I would _feel_ the life still in you. I know you are not dead. Stand up and face me now."

Dustil could not make himself be brave. He felt tears rising. If he did not do something, then he would die on the ground, flat on his face, at the feet of a Sith, in tears. It was the worst kind of ending – he knew he had to change it. But somehow, humiliated as he was to keep still, he could not force himself to move.

"You may save your _friends_, if you stand up," said the woman, tapping his head again with what might have been her boot. He did not know. "I may let them live." She laughed. "But you must do it now, boy. I shall count to five, and then I shall kill one of them, and then the other, and I shall leave you alive, to live with what you have chosen. One."

Dustil's brain beat against his skull. He had commanded them to lie still. He had said he would do whatever needed to be done. They had trusted him.

"Two."

His fist curled again around the jagged strip of metal beneath his outstretched hand, and he realized his palm was moist with cold sweat. He adjusted it to get a better grip.

"Yes… arm yourself. That's right, child. Three."

If he had left Bellamy where she had fallen, she would have had a better chance of survival – they might have left her for dead. If he had let Vrosh run when he had wanted to, he might have made it further than the ring of ships, and somehow managed to hide. They were both here because of _him_. He had led them here. He had to act.

"Four, child. And then your decision is made."

Dustil Onasi pushed off with his left hand, his blood beating in his ears, and he leapt to his feet with a long scrap of metal clutched in his right. He plunged his left hand into the cargo pocket of his trousers, fumbled for the stimulant, clutched it, and depressed it through the canvas of his pants and into his own leg. He tossed the empty canister to the ground, and his body coursed with alien vibrancy, making him feel twice his own size.

He met the eyes of his enemy.

They were yellow, gleaming in their sockets, set far back beneath the darkness of the black hood that outlined the shape of Twi'lek head tails. And she was smiling. "Not clever, child," she said softly, and she raised a thick silver cylinder from the folds of her robes. "That will only make what I must do somewhat longer… and infinitely more painful."

"I'm –" Dustil's voice was a rasp. He worked to find it. "I'm not going to die."

The enemy's smile widened, and she raised her empty hilt between them. From its socket, something glinted. Something faceted and red. And then that physical source was eclipsed by a shaft of light that seemed to shoot straight from its surface and into the air between them, beginning in the woman's grasp and ending a foot over Dustil's head, long and focused and pulsing, too bright and brilliant to be anything but what it was.

"You – you –" Dustil choked on terror and awe together. "You have a light – a lightsaber."

He had taken on a duel with a Jedi.

The woman laughed in real amusement. She swiftly pulled her weapon back; it made a sound like a swarm of insects, a rush of pure speed cutting the air, and then it sliced forward with purpose.

Dustil shouted in pain and surprise as the red line of the lightsaber caught the top of his left shoulder, barely a graze, but agonizing. He raised his scrap of a weapon and struck out blindly.

The woman blocked him without moving in her stance. The peeled metal in Dustil's hand smacked flat against the lightsaber, and there was the briefest moment of resistance followed by an odd sensation; a rush of energy moving through the metal in his hand into his fingers, up his arm, into his brain. He staggered back, clutching his head with his free hand, and saw the top of his makeshift weapon fall to the ground, smoking. The lightsaber had sheared it cleanly into halves.

"Enough? Or shall we go again?" The woman looked nonchalant. "We can play for as long as you like. You amuse me."

Dustil met her yellow eyes and felt the first _real _hatred of his life. Amuse her? This morning he had been a person, and now his life was only an amusement. And he was going to die in a ruined field, between people he would fail to defend.

He made an animal sound, raw and furious, and swung the remaining base of his jagged metal beam at the woman's head with all the strength he possessed.

She deftly stepped out of the way, and the force of Dustil's own swing, unhindered, sent him stumbling forward, crying out as he sought his balance.

"My," said the woman calmly. "What terrible technique. You really should try harder."

Dustil fought back a sob. She might kill him, but she wouldn't make him cry. He gathered what strength was left from the stimulant he had given himself – he knew they wore off quickly – and made one last attack, seeking to plunge the broken metal into the woman's robes, hoping to stab her stomach, her throat, anything he could hit.

She raised her foot, caught him square in the chest, and kicked him several paces back, knocking the wind from his body and the useless weapon from his hand. Dustil barely landed on his feet; he doubled over and searched for breath. He had to breathe, had to recover. He felt the excess energy drain out of him, leaving him cold and utterly human. He did not know what to do.

"But courage, little one," she said softly, circling him with her lightsaber still raised. "You are not dead yet. Try again."

Dustil did not know how anyone could look so pleased as she did about what she was doing to him. He had never seen such sickness. He had heard about the way ruthless tyrants toyed with the oppressed; it had touched the periphery of his mind as a thing that happened to other people, on unfortunate planets, where the Sith had the power to invade and do as they pleased. He had felt fleetingly sorry for those poor people, and then forgotten them, because he lived on Telos, where everything was fine.

"Try again," she whispered, grinning. "I know what you want. I feel it. And it is the only way for you to die with any dignity. Attack, boy. _Attack_."

Dustil attacked. He launched himself at her, digging into himself for strength, somehow avoiding the beam of her lightsaber and colliding, full-body, with the woman who was going to kill him. He wouldn't make it easy – he would wipe the grin from her face, at the very least. He reached for her eyes – knocked back her hood – nearly clung to her in his desperation to make her suffer –

And then he felt her fist. But it was not a fist. It was deeper. It struck him in the center of his body – _inside_ his body – and threw him into the air, making him spit blood. How he landed on his feet again, he did not know. But he saw her face, and she was not smiling, and he knew he had done something right. Strange power surged up from his gut – for a moment he thought that maybe the stimulant hadn't worn off after all – and he flew at her again, specks of blood flying from his open mouth. He howled when he felt the fist inside his ribs again and was sent back a second time – but she hadn't touched him – how was she –

Was _this_ how the Jedi used the Force?

Dustil ran at her for what he knew was the last time. Again, he felt the strange cold strike of something that was not physical. But this time he was waiting for it – this time he pushed back against it – not with his body, but with something else. Sheer will, and desperation.

The woman took an unsteady step back.

She lowered her lightsaber and peered at him.

And then she raised her hand, and Dustil crumpled to his knees, suddenly filled with cold.

"Your name," she said.

He clenched his teeth and tried to get back to his feet. She moved her hand. He fell again, his head dipping toward the ground under a terrible weight. The cold grew sharper. He heard himself speak his own name as strange fingers pushed through his mind.

"Dustil… Onasi."

He collapsed, breathing raggedly, blood trickling over his tongue and tasting of metal and ash. He saw the burnt ground, the woman's boots, the glare of her lightsaber as she lowered it. And then the glare was gone in a hum of swift sound.

"How unexpected." The woman's voice was no longer amused. Nor was it angry. "Your useless little friends may go."

Dustil heard no response.

"Go," barked the woman, after a silent moment. "I will not give the chance again."

Dustil heard the shifting of his classmates' bodies through the ground against which his ear was pressed; the scratch of their feet on rubble, their labored breathing. He heard unsteady footsteps stumble away, then gain speed… then disappear.

He had done it. They were safe. For a little while.

"How unexpected…" the woman said again.

And then there was nothing. Dustil's mind went black.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

It was cold and the air hummed in monotone. Dustil shifted in sleep and could not remember something, something important. He knew he should, but he was too tired. His mind lingered instead on the edge of something it was unwilling to let go of – warmth and quiet, the haze of light in his own house. He had to work to keep that familiar glow at the center of the dream, but the longer he tried to keep it there, the more his stomach dropped. He felt dully ill; he did not know why. He rolled onto his side to get more comfortable – and cried out in pain.

His eyes flew open.

His shoulder was burning.

It had been hit by a lightsaber.

Dustil stared in uncomprehending horror at the scuffed metal wall two inches from his nose. Had those things… happened?

No.

It had been a dream after all, which was why he was in bed now. His school had not been crushed. He had not seen familiar corpses trapped in wreckage. He had not dueled a woman with yellow eyes while his classmates lay silent and terrified at his feet in a wasteland of rubble. Those were not possible things.

It was not until Dustil breathed in through his nose, the inside of which was still caked with ash, that he believed what he remembered, because he could smell it. It tunneled through his head and made his eyes sting with tears as his experience flooded back to him – Vrosh's sobs, Bellamy's screaming, lying on his face as he was surrounded by an endless fleet of Sith ships that had the power to arrive and take life. He had never thought it would be _his_ life.

Although… the Jedi _hadn't_ killed him. Dustil clung to that thought next. The Jedi had not killed him, so then he must have been… rescued. Must have been. But he was not home. The wall in front of him was silver and flat and the room smelled of sterile air… and there was a child crying. Weeping. Very nearby. Dustil swallowed hard and told himself that he was at the medical clinic near his neighborhood. His father had found him lying in the ruined school, and had carried him here. His mother was probably right behind him in a chair. He would be all right. Everything that had happened would go back to normal.

And he would not roll over and find out that he was wrong, even though lying on his injured shoulder was agonizing.

"Is he conscious?"

A man's voice broke into his hopes. Dustil closed his eyes tight and prayed it was the voice of a medic, and that he was where he wished to be. He heard the fall of boots come close to his bed, and a hand touched his good shoulder. It was a big hand, and it was gentle, and Dustil felt sicker than ever. It did not belong to anyone he knew. Behind him, the child's weeping grew more desperate.

"Wake up."

"Just let him sleep, Baden." A second man's voice came from across the room. "There's no point in waking him, there's no comfort in being awake in this forsaken pit of –"

"No, but he's not sleeping," said Baden, slowly shaking Dustil's shoulder. "He's unconscious… better if he wakes, especially if he's got head injuries… can you hear me, young man?"

Dustil could. But he had a terrible feeling that when he rolled over and opened his eyes, he would find himself faced with another impossible terror that he could not process.

"Don't _wake_ him," said a biting voice that sounded much younger than the other two. "There's already one baby crying, I don't need two, this is bad _enough_."

Dustil bristled. He was not a baby. And he wasn't going to cry.

He rolled onto his back with a grimace; the pain in his shoulder was acute. He wondered how long it took to heal from a lightsaber. Maybe you never did.

He opened his eyes.

The ceiling was low and pale gray and dimly glowing, and the man leaning over Dustil was ringed in a nimbus of unwashed light. His face was shadowed, his chin unshaven. He looked… about as old as his father. Dustil's eyes moved instinctively to the front of the man's torn uniform, and he found what he was looking for – a Republic rank bar, its colors identifying a Lieutenant Commander. Almost the same as his dad. His heart gave a painful thud.

"Can you hear me?" Baden asked.

Dustil barely nodded.

"Can you move everything?"

Dustil thought what an awful question it was. And then he stretched his legs a little and arched his back slightly.

"Yeah," he rasped. "I – I think so. My shoulder…" He stopped and gritted his teeth. Somewhere in the room was someone who was expecting him to act like a child. Maybe it was better not to complain.

"Yep, I see it." The man looked grim, but not overly so. "You took a bad knock. Can you tell me what happened?"

Dustil drew a breath that shuddered more than he would have liked it to. "My… my school exploded," he said faintly.

The man's jaw clenched. "You were hurt in the blast?"

"No, there… there was a Jedi."

Across the room, someone exploded into laughter. "A _Jedi_?" asked the same snide voice that didn't like babies. "Oh of _course_. Some terrifying _Dark_ Jedi, I expect. "

Dustil swiftly turned his head and tried to see the speaker, but Baden was blocking his line of sight. That Jedi had already mocked him as much as he could stand, and their duel had been the worst moment of Dustil's life. _No one_ was going to cheat him of that experience.

"There _was _a Dark Jedi," he said hotly. "There were _three, _and I didn't die, so why don't you come over here and get your ass –"

"That's enough," said Baden quietly. "Calm down and be clear, I need to hear this."

Dustil clamped his mouth shut for a second, breathing hard. He couldn't believe he'd just sworn in front of a grown up. And he hadn't gotten in trouble.

Though trouble no longer had the same definition.

"I was trying to play dead," he said finally. "I saw them get off the ship. But they found me, and one of them told me to get up and fight if I wanted to live, so I…" He decided not to confess how long it had taken him to gather his courage. "So I did."

Baden gazed down at him, expressionless, as if searching for something. "What did you fight with?"

"I – I don't know. Part of the school, it came off in the blast. It was just metal. It fell in half when I tried to hit her."

"_Her_?" crowed the snide voice from across the room. "You fought a _girl_ Jedi?"

Dustil's blood boiled and he opened his mouth to strike back.

But Baden held up a hand and nodded as if Dustil's story were so far believable and satisfactory. "Did she say anything to you?"

Dustil tried to remember all of it. She had said that he amused her. But he had no desire to repeat that; the words filled him with a helpless fury that he could barely contain.

"She… asked my name," he said. "But she didn't really _ask_ – I mean, she did. But then I felt like I _had_ to answer. In my… head." He had no idea how to explain it.

"All right," said Baden, looking pale and furious. "Anything else?"

"Yeah, she said… she said I was…" Dustil paused. "Unexpected." He tasted the word when it came out, and wondered what it meant.

The room was quiet, except for the low hum of the light panel in the ceiling and the continued weeping of the little child.

"They were sweeping for Force sensitive kids," said the second man, from across the room. His voice sounded empty. "I thought it might have been that. Looking for Sith recruits."

Everything in Dustil recoiled at the words.

"Re-recruits?" he repeated, horrified. "Wait – wait, where _are _–" He stopped. He pushed himself up on his elbows, grimacing against the pain in his shoulder, and sat straight up. He scanned the room. It was small, square and dim except for the pulsing blue force field at the opposite end, and it was entirely bare except for a line of unfriendly looking cots. In it were five humans, all male: himself, Baden, a man who looked to be about Baden's age but was grayer in the face, a boy who looked barely older than Dustil, and a very small boy who couldn't have been more than six curled up on the cot nearest the glimmering force field, a trembling silhouette against the light. The little boy's crying had given way to chokes and sniffles.

Dustil gazed at the little boy, then moved his eyes to Baden. "Are we… in prison?" he asked faintly, terrified of the answer.

From four cots away, the older boy snorted again. "Cleverest thing on Telos, weren't you?" He flopped onto his back.

"Control yourself, Shaardan," Baden warned. "There's no need to make this worse than it is."

"Oh, like _that's_ possible," said Shaardan angrily. But he closed his mouth and stared at the ceiling without another word.

But Dustil had heard something in Shaardan's insult that made his stomach cold. "We're not…" He didn't want to ask it, for fear that the answer would make it true. But he had to know. "We're not… on Telos?"

"We're on a ship," said Baden, who was still crouched beside Dustil's cot, looking into his face.

"Whose ship? The Sith?" Dustil heard the words come out of his mouth and nearly laughed. Imprisoned on a Sith ship? Him? This was like something out of one of his dad's stories – something he could not imagine at all, something that, in the retelling at the dinner table, always sounded brilliant and exciting, like a fantastic galactic adventure, though his dad was always trying to impress upon him the seriousness of the matter. He got a sudden clear memory of the last time his dad had told him a good story. He could remember his father's voice… and more than that, his mother's face. She had never liked the stories. They had made her expression tight and pale.

He was beginning to understand why.

"Yes, the Sith," said Baden. "We were captured during the bombing – along with a few women, I think, but they're in another cell."

Dustil tried to swallow the information. It still seemed ridiculous. "Okay," he said after a moment. "But… why would the Sith come to Telos? Is it because of the military base?"

"No." Baden looked furious. "The base on Telos isn't a military threat, it's a support center for the Republic military families in the colony, since so many of them are settled there. It's barely more than a hospital and a hangar. The Sith know that."

"Then _why_?" Dustil persisted.

"As a demonstration of brutality," cut in the man who stood across the room, his back to them, the palms of his hands resting on the wall beside the force shield. He was another Republic soldier – the uniform made it clear – but he was not standing like a soldier. Not like Dustil had always envisioned his father standing, parade-ground straight and proud, in the middle of battle or anywhere else. This man's head was bowed, and his shoulders slumped. His voice was quiet and full of passion, but no proud strength. "To instill fear in the galaxy by proving that they have no compassion for innocent civilians and will gather power at any cost. To make the rest of the galaxy want to surrender."

Dustil felt a new shiver of fear. For the first time, he had some inkling of what those words meant. He thought of the yellow-eyed woman, and knew that it was true; the Sith had no compassion.

"They've probably obliterated the planet," the man went on, his voice cutting through the room, though he did not turn. "I'm sure they've wiped it of life."

"Kineth," said Baden sharply, watching Dustil's face. "That's enough."

Dustil knew his face had contorted; he felt it freeze in horror. But he didn't know how to make it go away. It was a long time before he was able to speak. Visions of his school, his house, his planet under laser fire, everything burning, filled his head.

His mother.

"Where was the _Republic_?" he nearly shouted, when he found his voice again. "Why didn't they come? Why didn't they help us?"

Baden bowed his head, just slightly. "I'm sure they did," he said. "I'm sure they were just behind the Sith."

"I didn't see any Republic ships!"

"Well, you wouldn't have," Baden pointed out matter-of-factly. "You were unconscious in a holding cell."

Dustil thought about that for a moment, and realized that Baden was probably right. Of course the Republic had come. Of course they had – his father had probably been there just seconds too late. And maybe he was right behind them now. Dustil turned his mind to that thought and took relief in it.

"What… kind of ship are we on?" he asked presently, looking around the room again and trying to recognize some element of it.

"Like it _matters_," snarled Shaardan.

Baden cast a glance over his shoulder. "It only matters," he said quietly, "if any if any of us hopes to get off of it."

Shaardan went quiet. In the pause, Dustil peered past Baden and studied the other boy's face, not sure what to make of him. He sure wasn't much of a sport. Not that Dustil could really blame him.

"How much do you know about cruisers?" Baden asked, turning back to Dustil.

"Everything," said Dustil instinctively. "If they're Republic ones."

Baden laughed a little. "Is that so?"

It actually _was_ so. Dustil had spent most of his life either being torn away from

the flight simulator by his mother or avoiding homework by studying the schematics of whatever kind of ship his father happened to be on. He had been fueled, for as long as he could remember, by dreams of becoming the same kind of star pilot – the same kind of war hero. He glanced at the impenetrable blue of the force field and wondered what his father would do to get past it. Because his father _would_ get past it.

"This _is_ a Republic ship," said Baden. "One of the many that Revan and Malak had under their command during the war against the Mandalorians. Are you familiar with the capital ship classes?"

"Yeah," said Dustil eagerly. "What's this, an Omega?"

Baden raised his eyebrows. "Absolutely," he said. "How would you know –"

"My dad served on an Omega for three years during the Mandalorian wars," said Dustil, the words spilling over themselves. "He told me all about these ships, I memorized the schematics."

"Oh really?" Baden looked interested. "Who's your dad? Though I probably don't know him, there are so many –"

"Carth Onasi."

Baden's mouth slowly closed. He pushed up from his crouch and stood almost at attention.

For the first time since Dustil had sat up, Kineth turned away from the wall, and his eyes glittered in the weird blue light of the force field. "You're Commander Onasi's son?" he asked softly.

Dustil sat up straighter, fiercely proud to be able to nod. "You know him?"

Kineth gave the ghost of a smile. "Know him? No… I wouldn't say that. I just owe him my life."

Dustil swung his feet to the floor and sat forward. "Were you in battle together?"

"Quiet," Baden said, suddenly curt. He stepped to the side and glanced out through the force field, his eyes narrowed. Seemingly satisfied, he stepped back, and fixed Dustil with a steady look. "You say the Dark Jedi got your name, so there may be nothing to be done about it, but it would be best to keep quiet about whose son you are. The Sith might want to make you a… good example."

"But…" Dustil began, not entirely certain he understood what Baden was implying, and not liking the sound of it at any rate.

Then he snapped his mouth shut as the echo of footsteps falling loud and clear reached them above the humming of the force field. He froze, going as stiff as the officers in the room with him, and fought the urge to shrink back against the wall, to get as far away from the approaching feet as possible. His mind was filled with the memory of the Jedi's yellow eyes…

Two figures dressed in silver armor marched past. They wore no helmets, though Dustil had seen enough of his father's equipment to recognize when armor was designed to have one, and with a swift surge of hate he wondered if they had taken the helmets off just for the excuse of leering at their prisoners – because they both swiveled their heads around as they passed and smirked. One of them said something under his breath, pointing in at them and making the sort of gesture with his hand that Dustil knew his mother would have grounded him for…

More than she would have grounded him for some stupid, pointless lie?

His chest felt tight.

The second of the two guards burst into laughter, and Dustil clenched his jaw. He started to clench his hands into fists too, but the pain in his shoulder intensified when he did, and he couldn't help hissing slightly through his teeth, though he stifled it as quickly as he could and cast a furious glance toward Shaardan to make sure he hadn't heard.

The guards passed. Baden moved again; he'd been standing still as stone since the first sound of footfalls. He turned to Kineth now.

"Lieutenant," he said, his voice slipping into a tone Dustil knew all too well – orders. You gave orders in that voice. His father did it all the time. Usually it just made him feel angry and defiant, but now there was something almost comforting about hearing it. "See what you can do for his shoulder. They won't be giving us any medpacs any time soon."

Kineth's lips twisted, though it was hard to tell whether or not he meant it to be a smile. But he nodded, his black hair fringed in blue against the light, and pushed away from the wall to stride over to Dustil's cot. Shaardan gave a muffled snort. Dustil tried to ignore him. Kineth shot a strange look in Shaardan's direction, then turned to gaze for a moment at the crying boy, who was now no longer crying or sniffling. He was breathing deeply and steadily, and had probably fallen asleep. With a slight shake of his head, Kineth sat down on the cot beside Dustil.

"There's probably not much we can do," he said, motioning for Dustil to turn his shoulder to him. "Hold still."

Dustil nodded, but had to bite the inside of his cheek as Kineth peeled the ruined edges of his shirt away from his raw shoulder. He couldn't be sure if he could actually smell the burned cloth, or if that was just the lingering taste of soot in his nose and mouth, but he knew for certain what the strange, nauseatingly cloying smell was, half sweet, half sharp. It had hung over the ruins of his classroom just… just hours ago. Was it even hours? How long had it been? It still didn't make any _sense_. He should be on his way home now, to try one more time to beg his way out of being grounded, to sneak into the simulator at least if all else failed, to ask again, like he did almost every night, when his father was going to be coming home…

"You don't see lightsabers in action that often," Kineth muttered, trying to rip Dustil's sleeve even further back without jostling the burn too badly, but with limited success. "Not up close. Not if you're lucky. But it's a clean burn, at least. Never any blood, they say. Doesn't look like there's any real damage to the muscle tissue. Could have been a lot worse." His lips twisted again. "I suppose."

Dustil glanced uncertainly toward Baden, but the older officer was pacing back and forth before the force field now, apparently deep in thought. Turning back to Kineth, Dustil asked again quietly, "You served with my father?"

Kineth frowned. He dropped Dustil's arm and leaned back to look him in the eyes. Then he nodded. "The battle above Derian IV," he said in a low voice. "Are you familiar with it?"

"Yeah," said Dustil. It was one of the stories his father told best and his mother liked least. "That's when the Sith set up an ambush at the moon outpost."

"That's right." Kineth paused. "I had barely been made Lieutenant and transferred to the _Allegiance_ –"

"My dad was a Lieutenant Commander on that one," Dustil interrupted, unable to stop himself.

"Yes he was," said Kineth, smiling slightly, and this time it looked like a real smile. "The _Allegiance _received intelligence of an abandoned Sith communications outpost on the third moon around Derian IV, and my wing was given the task of destroying it. It was the perfect mission for a brand new Lieutenant – an opportunity for me to get a feel for my new position without wasting lives. Or so we thought." Kineth smiled wanly. "The Sith had tricked us."

"The outpost _wasn't_ abandoned," said Dustil, who could not help being pleased, even while imprisoned, that he could hold his own in a conversation like this. "Revan was just looking for an easy way to take a chunk out of a strong arm of the Republic forces."

Baden didn't stop in his pacing, but Dustil got the impression now that he was listening to every softly spoken word even as he kept glancing out the force field for guards that hadn't yet returned.

Kineth nodded. "And it nearly worked. They had six whole squadrons hiding around the dark side of the second moon, and when their capital ships came out of hyperspace just at the edge of the gravity well, we knew they'd be close enough to spit on our viewports in minutes. We were totally unprepared - it happened so _fast_." He laughed a little, like a bark. It was not a happy sound. "We were overpowered in every way. I couldn't see the stars for the blasts. My men were being blown to shreds all around me, and I couldn't get a grip, in the chaos. I couldn't pull back fast enough. It was a fight we couldn't win, I knew that much, and I ordered a retreat, but it was useless. I couldn't get them to form up, and we were cut off from the _Allegiance_. I knew I was going to die. Worse, I knew my men were going to die." He looked squarely at Dustil. "But reinforcements arrived. Another wing had been launched. Led by your father."

Dustil sat very still, his blood racing, the pain in his throbbing shoulder almost forgotten. To hear another man tell the familiar story – to see another man's face full of remembered emotion, and gratitude... it was mesmerizing. He only knew his father's modest version of events: the Republic reinforcements had gone in, the Republic forces had managed to escape. Aways he gave credit to the Republic fleet as a whole. Never to himself.

"I've never seen flying like it before, or since," said Kineth, his eyes still glittering. "The relief I felt when I heard his voice on the comm, giving instructions – I can't tell you. I really can't." He paused and looked away. Shook his head slightly. "He flew circles around my retreating fighters, keeping the enemy at bay until those of us who were left could make an emergency dock. I'm sure you know the end of the story. Our cruisers made a run for it into a safe hyperspace jump. Miracle, really. It wasn't long after that they promoted Onasi to Commander. And he deserved it."

Dustil set his jaw and his throat against the itching emotion he suddenly felt. His father – _his father_ – was a hero. It was one thing to hear the stories and see the medals. It was another entirely to watch this man's eyes.

"I was injured," said Kineth after a moment. "Badly. I had to be pulled from my fighter. Medics had me on a stretcher, and the first face I saw over me was Onasi's. He pulled off his helmet, grinning like we'd just been racing our speeders down the block, no big deal, and he – he told me I'd done well out there. I needed to hear it."  
Kineth fell silent, looking at the wall.

Dustil returned, in his mind, to a moment last year. He had been lying on the ground beside his speeder after winning the annual neighborhood race, his thigh throbbing from the med shot he'd been given, the rough ground blazing gravelly tracks into his torn legs and back. He hadn't even known his father had seen him win – he had been away for months in the war and wasn't even scheduled for leave – when, out of nowhere, his face had appeared overhead and blocked the sunlight. And he had grinned. And Dustil's heart had leapt. _"Nice racing, Dustil. You'll be a hell of a pilot, someday. Don't, uh – don't tell your mother I put it like that."_

Dustil curled his fingers tightly around the hard edge of his cot and closed his eyes. More than anything, he wanted his father to appear now as he had beside the speeder – as he had above Derian IV – unexpected and confident and safe. More than anything, he wanted to go home.

No one spoke. The room buzzed softly with the twining sounds of the light panels and the force field.

"So…" Dustil ventured, when he had his throat under control. "How are we going to get out of here?"

From his prone position on his cot, Shaardan abruptly turned his head and raked Dustil with an openly curious gaze.

"What?" Dustil demanded.

Shaardan's eyes closed again, and he turned his face back to the ceiling. "You're being insane," he said dully. "We're not going to get _out _of here. Perhaps you noticed the force field? Know what happens if you touch it? You get entirely _sizzled_."

Dustil glared at him. _Perhaps _he'd noticed the force field? Who used the word "perhaps" like that, anyway? "Just lie there then," he said angrily. "Stay with the Sith – have fun. But I'm sure not staying in here if _I_ don't have to."

"But you _do_ have to," said Shaardan, with a bitter laugh. "That's the _point_."

"_No_, there's – there's a _way_. There has to be." And with that, Dustil got to his feet, ready for action. He had no idea what the action would be. He only knew that he had escaped a Dark Jedi with his life, and he was going to escape this room.

Baden stopped his pacing. He stared straight at Dustil.

"You can't just find a way," he said. "You have to make a way. But we're not talking about a slap on the wrist for getting caught here. You understand that?"

Dustil lifted his chin, closing his fist at his side like he had when wrapping his fingers around the shard of metal in the ashes of his ruined school.

"Yes," he said. As he said it, something turned in his stomach, and he realized that he really _did_ understand. He was being held prisoner on a Sith ship, and there were Sith soldiers out there, and maybe, somewhere else on the ship, that Dark Jedi. Remembering, he raised his hand to his lips and rubbed his knuckles against the corner of his mouth. A few flecks of dried blood brushed away on his fingers.

Baden nodded grimly. "All right." He stepped away from the force field, deeper into the room and to the corner where Kineth had gotten back to his feet now, beside Dustil. "We won't be left together for long, so - "

"What?" Dustil burst in, unable to help himself, his stomach sinking even further. "What do you mean? Why - why would they separate us?"

Kineth shot Dustil a strange, almost pitying look, and it was somehow worse than any sneer Shaardan had so far given him.

"The Lieutenant and I are going to be taken away for questioning at any time," Baden said, so coolly that the words didn't make any real sense. "If they picked the rest of you up as potential recruits, I can't say I know what they'll do, but I'd be willing to bet you'll have more time in which to make a move. What's your name?"

Dustil realized that he had only given them his father's. "Dustil."

"You're going to have to keep your wits about you, Dustil. Concentrate on taking things one step at a time. You say you know this class of ship. You think you can make your way around without a guide?"

"Yes," he said fiercely. Baden nodded, as though that really were enough of an answer, as though he were satisfied. Dustil didn't know whether to feel proud or terrified.

Kineth was studying the ceiling now. "We're victims of our own engineering," he mused. "Inch wide ventilation strips built straight through the light panel. Detention block standard, I guess. Not a chance we can squeeze through those."

"I don't think squeezing into the light panel would do much good in any case," said Baden grimly, looking up. "It's going to be all wires up there – enough raw power to fry the whole block if we hit the wrong spot."

Dustil considered the situation. He scanned the walls. And then he dropped onto his stomach and peered under the cots. "Nothing down here," he said after a moment, disappointed. Not that he had really expected to find a shaft of any kind inside a prison cell. That stuff probably only happened in holovids. "But we want to get under the floor, if we can, because there's a cargo hold under us, and at the back of that hold there's a service lift up to the hangar maintenance corridor on the fifth level… and it's the hangar we want. We could sneak in from maintenance, maybe steal a starfighter. The bay doors might be locked, but once we're in a ship, we can blast the doors wide open, right?"

He stood up and brushed himself off to find both Baden and Kineth staring at him.

"What?" he said.

But he never got an answer. There were footfalls in the corridor, and both Republic soldiers swiveled toward the noise.

Three men in silver armor, wearing helmets now that made them appear more frightening and invincible than the first two Sith that Dustil had seen, appeared beyond the force field. They didn't need to reveal their faces for Dustil to know what they were feeling. The arrogant set of their shoulders, the way they held their blasters almost carelessly – every gesture showed that these men felt great power and had no fear. "Stand back from the doorway," one of them barked, so suddenly that Dustil jumped. He cursed himself for betraying his nervousness, and the Sith soldier turned his glinting visor in Dustil's direction and laughed.

Baden and Kineth shared a brief, almost undetectable glance, but they slowly backed away from the shield. The little boy, still asleep, did not move a muscle. Shaardan closed his eyes, balled his fists, and seemed to want to sink through the cot and disappear.

Dustil stepped up slightly, and stood in the window of space just behind Baden and Kineth, peering between them at the soldiers who had come for… something. He didn't know what it was.

"Baden Ellor."

Baden did not answer.

"There's no point in pretending – we know who you are. You're to come with us for questioning." The Sith soldier sounded almost bored. "Step forward and come quietly, if you know what's good for you."

Baden stood entirely straight. His fists relaxed at his sides. And then, as casually as though he were in his own home, he walked toward the force field and the soldiers. Dustil didn't know how he managed not to look afraid.

One of the Sith had paused at a small upright computer terminal. Now he swiped a passcard through the reader and keyed in a command with armored fingers.

The force field flickered and vanished, and Baden stepped out of the cell.

Dustil leaned instinctively forward – maybe it wasn't exactly freedom, on the other side of that field, but it was one step closer.

But he had barely moved a fraction toward the opening when Kineth's arm lifted slightly from his side and blocked Dustil's path.

The force field reappeared and touched the shadows in the room with eerie blue light. They were trapped again. Dustil felt a stab of anger. It wasn't fair to do this to people – to keep them in a room like this, and come for them one by one with guns and armor and make them afraid for their lives. It wasn't right.

The Sith flanked Baden; one on either side and one behind.

"Get ready to answer the Commander's questions," said the soldier in the rear, prodding Baden viciously in the back with his blaster. "Or you'll find yourself very uncomfortable."

The soldiers began to march Baden away. Dustil wondered, with a sinking heart, if he would ever see the man again. He wondered what would happen once Kineth was taken too, leaving him without even the illusion of a protector.

What came next was so unexpected that Dustil's heart jumped – he flew toward the force field and stood watching the corridor as though it were an action vid.

Baden had turned on the Sith. He had no armor and no weapons. But he was strong and tall, like Dustil's father, and by turning quickly and without warning and using his elbow to strike downward into the rear soldier's chest plates, he knocked the man completely off his balance. The soldier cursed and fell back into the computer console with a crash of armor; the console screen brightened considerably and the terminal emitted a string of error noises. The soldier was unable to right himself; he stumbled sideways and toppled, landing hard on one of his wrists and shouting in pain. Baden dropped to a crouch as the two soldiers on either side lunged inward to grab him and missed, smashing into each other. By the time they had regained their stances and raised their blasters to fire, Baden had already snatched the fallen Sith's blaster from his hands, leapt to his feet, and fired the first shot.

Dustil's mouth fell open. Things like this did not happen in real life. They just didn't.

But they happened in war.

Blaster fire ricocheted from Sith armor, its energy partially dissipated in a ring of light. But it left a deep, black dent, and sent the soldier staggering backward.

"You'll pay for that!" cried the other, but another blaster shot rang out, and he too was knocked backward, shouting from within dented armor.

Dustil's heart raced with sudden hope. Baden was brilliant – he'd knocked one of their captors down and shot the two others – maybe he'd get them out of here any second. Maybe he'd steal the computer passcard and swipe it, and lead them all to a starfighter, and shoot down whoever stood in their path. Maybe this was how people got away.

The crumpled soldier who had fallen first came back to life more quickly than Dustil had realized was possible. He had almost dismissed the man, thinking that his wrist might be broken, or that maybe he just wouldn't stand back up.

It didn't take long to draw a vibroblade from its harness. That was the first thing Dustil learned.

It took even less time to thrust it straight into someone's back. That was the second.

Baden choked. The Sith blade protruded from his ribcage; his eyes widened and grew unseeingly bright. Color drained from his face, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Dustil had seen these effects in vids before… but they had never gotten it quite right, he realized, too frozen in numb shock to move his eyes. He had never seen anyone look the way Baden did.

Baden Ellor, Lieutenant Commander of the Republic, fell to his knees.

"Fool," spat the Sith behind him, rubbing his wrist as the other soldiers ran forward again, panting. "We were to bring you _alive_. With your combat record, you might have survived if you hadn't been so rash. You might have been given an opportunity to swear loyalty to the Sith, and to rise to power in our ranks. One never knows."

Baden's eyes were glassy and dull. He stared straight forward. His mouth moved, shapelessly at first and then with more focus. Dustil had to strain to hear the words.

"To hell with… the Sith…"

The soldier at his rear gave a snort of contempt from within his helmet. He raised his silver boot and slammed the flat of it against the hilt of his sword, driving it further through Baden and sending him sprawling to the side. He was dead.

"No," sneered the soldier. "To hell with _you_." He braced his boot on the small of Baden's back, gripped the handle of his sword, and yanked it from the body he had ruined. "Pick him up," he said curtly.

The other two soldiers lifted Baden's body into the air.

"Take him to the airlock and throw him out. I'll speak to the Commander."

"He won't be happy…"

"You just do as you're told, and leave that to me."

Baden was swiftly carried off. The remaining soldier turned and peered into the prison cell. His visor gleamed, blue and furious, beyond the humming force field.

"We know your name and record too, _Lieutenant_," he said softly. Mockingly.

Behind Dustil, Kineth's breathing accelerated.

"You'd be wise to come quietly, when we return for you. Of course, if you prefer, I can always kill you now."

Kineth did not move or answer.

The Sith soldier caressed the underside of his blaster with slow, silver-clad fingers. "I hope this means you're smarter than your friend," he said, but in truth he didn't sound like he much cared. He turned with the precision of a military man, and disappeared down the corridor.

There was blood on the floor, in the middle of the hall. Not much. A little pool, still and dark. Dustil was surprised, in a strange, cold way. He had expected more blood from a death like that. He wondered why there wasn't more of it. He wondered why he couldn't feel his own arms and legs.

Detached thoughts swam through the numb space where his mind had used to be, and he realized that being a soldier meant many things other than being gone a lot and coming home with medals. In a disturbing flash of imagination, he saw his father in Baden's place, his face slack, his own blood seeping from his mouth. It had never occurred to Dustil that his father could die in this war; he had always imagined him blasting ships apart as he escaped from clutches of the Sith. He hadn't understood the risks involved – he hadn't known what the alternative was.

He had never considered what was waiting for the soldiers who didn't escape.

"Dustil."

He didn't turn toward Kineth's voice. He heard the still-slow breathing of the little child, and the rasping breath of Shaardan, who might have been hyperventilating. Or crying. It didn't matter much which. They were all going to die, like Baden.

"Dustil, turn around."

"They killed him." Dustil wondered why it seemed so different from yesterday. His teacher and half his classmates had vanished in a blink – in a smash. He had seen the corpses.

Why was this so different?

"Yes they did. They killed him, and they'll kill me next, if I don't tell them what I know about Republic strategy."

Dustil thought idly about trying to throw himself through the force field. He wondered how long it would take to die in the rush of power, or if there was a possibility of making it through alive. Maybe it would only take a second. Maybe it would hurt less than getting a sword shoved through his heart. Did it hurt, to have a sword shoved through you, or did you go straight into shock? He didn't really know. It was strange to realize that he was probably going to find out.

"Dustil, listen closely. I'm not _going_ to tell them anything. Once they take me, you boys are on your own. You have to shake this off and get prepared."

Shake this off? Dustil tilted his head a little and studied the pool of blood. No, he wouldn't shake this off. He was pretty sure about that.

"The first time you see a man die by another man's hand is…" Kineth's voice tapered to a rasp. "It changes you forever, boy. You're not who you were anymore, and you never will be again. That life is gone. So let it go."

Let it go.

Dustil had a mad desire to laugh.

"Listen to me, Dustil." Kineth's voice was growing lower and more desperate. Dustil kept his eyes on Baden's blood and vaguely wished that Kineth would bother Shaardan instead. "There's no time. You'll have to feel this later."

Dustil wasn't sure he could feel it now.

"Imagine what your father would do."

They were, perhaps, the only words that could have pierced his morbid stupor. Swiftly, compelled not by decision but by instinct, Dustil lifted his chin and turned toward Kineth. His blood began to pump again. He could not refuse to live up to his name. His father would never stand in shock in the middle of a crisis, and neither would he.

"Good." Kineth glanced at Shaardan, who had not moved. "You too, Shaardan. Sit up and listen."

Shaardan slowly sat up. There was no smirk left in his eyes now; Baden's grim death and the new reality of their situation had clearly shattered the armor of his sarcasm. Dustil was both glad of that, and more afraid than ever.

Kineth flicked his eyes over Dustil's shoulder, toward the force field. When he seemed assured that they were not being watched, he spoke in a rapidfire whisper. "It is crucial that if either of you gets an opportunity, you use it to send a distress signal. Both for your own sakes, and for the sake of that child there, and for the sake of any other prisoners who might be aboard this ship."

"But what about getting our own ship?" Dustil burst out.

"No. They'll separate me from you at any second, and you won't have a pilot." Kineth's hands were shaking. "This was a Republic ship, and we have to hope they haven't done any major system alterations."

Dustil listened as Kineth told him the code sequence to access the ship beacons from any centrally linked commpanel, and he tried to burn it into his memory. All he could do was hope to find a command console and get his hands on it without being seen.

"If you know Omegas as well as you seem to, you should be able to find a console if you can just get a moment to yourself." Kineth drew a rattling breath. "Or, if there's no other alternative, and if somehow you _do _make it to the hangar, you can try to send a signal from one of the berthed ships. The range won't be as long, but it's a better hope than noth –" Kineth stopped. His eyes narrowed over Dustil's shoulder, at the force field.

Dustil turned quickly, afraid of what he would see, but more afraid to keep his back to whatever it was. What he saw – or _didn't _see – was the very last thing he expected.

The force field was gone.

And no Sith were there.

"_Go,_" hissed Kineth.

Dustil had no choice. Kineth shoved him into the corridor and followed close on his heels. The force field flickered back into place behind them, but only for a moment, before it gave a static buzz and vanished again.

Dustil stared at the damaged force field, which continued to appear and disappear at random, and he realized that when Baden had slammed that Sith soldier into the console, he had given them their only chance. He wondered if Baden had done it on purpose, or if it had been coincidence. Dustil had the vague, unsettling feeling that coincidence had nothing to do with it – that it was something else altogether. But he didn't have time to think about what it was. They were _out_. Dustil had never been so glad to get out of a room. He had never realized that a simple corridor could give him so much hope. He looked around swiftly – there was no patrol in sight. There was only another force field, several yards away along the sterile corridor. He wondered if the women were behind it.

"This one's damaged," Kineth said grimly as he struck the side of the computer panel with the flat of his hand. "You'll have to find another. Come on." He ran several paces down the hall, dropped to his knees, and ran his fingers over a square, slatted ventilation panel that was built into the base of the corridor wall. He tried to pry it up with his fingertips, but did not seem able to get a grip that allowed him to wrench the thing from the corridor floor.

Dustil understood what they had to do. He dropped to one knee beside Kineth, untied his boot, and ripped the cord out of the lacing holes. Years later, he would look back and marvel at himself for thinking so quickly, but at the time it didn't seem so smart. He cared only about getting the panel out of the floor, in any way possible. He fed the end of his shoelace cord through one of the panel's slippery slats and managed to feed it back up again, through the slat beside it. When he had both ends of the cord in his hand, he yanked up on them with all his might, and the panel budged, but only barely. He yanked again, but did not have the strength to dislodge the square from its frame.

Kineth grabbed the ends of Dustil's shoelace from him. At the same time, he pressed a small, rectangular thing into Dustil's hand.

His rank bar.

"Pry up the sides," Kineth muttered. "I'll pull, you pry."

Dustil shoved the edge of the rank bar between the side of the ventilation panel and the corridor wall and pried up with all his strength, his heart hammering with such force he could no longer make out the low humming of the damaged force barrier or the light panels. He could only hear himself – his own breath and the slamming of his frightened pulse. That was all there was. That was all he needed. As long as he had that, he was alive.

"The atmospheric scrubbers work on a cycle," Kineth muttered as they worked. "There's constant circulation, but once an hour the system runs a ship-round pump cycle, upping the purifier load and making a purge sweep through the more polluted engine and operation levels, ending in a waste dump into space through the pressure ports."

Dustil didn't know what the point was, and his fingertips ached from holding tightly to the rank bar, but he continued to pry.

"Okay," he said.

Kineth shook his head. "No," he said, yanking again. "I'm telling you this because I don't know how long it's going to take you to crawl to another location. You must go as quickly as possible. You may have an hour before the next pump cycle, or you may have five minutes, and you don't want to be caught in the ventilation system when it starts. You might not survive it."

Dustil felt a wave of panic. "But what if it takes longer?"

"Would you prefer to wait in the cell?" Kineth replied harshly. "Because those are your options."

Dustil shook his head.

"Then you'll have to take your chances."

What seemed hours was probably only seconds – and the Sith did not come. Kineth finally wrenched the panel out of the wall, and Dustil's shoelace cord fell in halves. The panel dropped with a clang.

"Get in there – go –"

Again, Dustil had no choice. He was lifted bodily by Kineth, who fed him feet first into the sloping ventilation shaft and shoved him further down by his shoulders. Across the corridor, Dustil caught a glimpse of a group of girls who were trapped behind an energy barrier, all watching him with terrified eyes. He hadn't taken a moment to look into the women's cell, but now he saw them. One was his age, but many were much younger. The only adult was a grim-faced female officer, who watched their progress and gave them a knowing nod, but did not seem to have much hope. One of the little girls caught Dustil's eyes as he slid down into the ventilation shaft, and he found that he could not look away. In her face there _was_ hope – she watched him intently until he was out of sight, and the look on her face bolstered Dustil's resolve. She _needed_ him to get to a commpanel. She needed him, and so did the rest of the girls, and Shaardan, and the little boy. They all needed him, just as Bellamy and Vrosh had needed him. He would not fail. He would send a distress signal.

He _would_.

When the top of Dustil's head was level with the corridor floor Kineth fitted the shaft panel back into place over him, and it went almost completely dark in the shaft; the slats were thin and very little light filtered through. The shaft was freezing cold and just big enough for Dustil – he could barely move his arms, and would only be able to inch himself backward in the tight space. He'd have to wriggle to get anywhere, and how long he'd have to fight his way downward, he did not know. He didn't even know where this tunnel went, or whether it narrowed, or just came to a dead end somewhere. If it _did _come to a dead end, he didn't know if he would be able to move enough to crawl back up. He felt suddenly more frightened than ever before – more even than in fighting the Dark Jedi. He was buried in the floor, and if he got stuck, no one would come looking for him. He'd starve to death, alone and trapped, or he'd suffocate during a pollution purge. Was there a worse way to die?

Was he _going_ to die?

"Wait!" he whispered frantically to Kineth, whom he could no longer see. "What about you – and what about the other two? Aren't you all coming?"

Kineth did not answer. The next voice Dustil heard was a shout from the end of the corridor, and then there was a terrible, deafening banging of military boots slamming against the plasteel flooring all around him.

"How did you get out of there?" shouted one of the Sith.

"It seems the shield is malfunctioning," Kineth said, sounding quite calm. "I'm sure one of you will have to be executed for that. In any case, it looks like you'll have to take me to the Commander now, doesn't it? If you leave me here, who knows what I'll do?"

"Grab him," growled one of the Sith soldiers. "Take him to the Commander. And you there – "

Dustil froze. Had the soldier seen him?

"Stay here and make sure those useless brats don't try anything."

The soldier had only been speaking to one of his men. Dustil breathed again. He listened as Kineth was marched away, and he wondered if Kineth was going to die – but he didn't want to think about it. Instead, he concentrated on listening to the footsteps of the soldier who had stayed behind. He stayed perfectly silent in the ventilation shaft, waiting to hear a shout or a curse, which would surely come as soon as the soldier realized that there were only two boys left in the room. But there was no shout. The soldier scuffed his feet, exhaled in what sounded like irritation, and muttered something about always getting recruit-level jobs.

The Sith really _were_ a bunch of mindless, violent animals, Dustil thought contemptuously. It was just like his dad always said – for all their cruelty and blaster power, they really _couldn't_ count to three on their own. They hadn't even noticed he was missing.

At least, not yet.

Quickly, and as silently as he could, Dustil began to worm his way backward down the ventilation shaft. He knew where he was going, in the map in his mind, but he didn't know the mainteance systems of the Omega class ships nearly as well as he knew the hangar bays and the bridge controls; ventilation tunnels had really never captured his imagination. Still, it was some comfort that he knew what he was heading toward. The largest of the Omega's cargo holds was directly below him, and a cargo hold wouldn't be as well guarded as a lot of other places. From there, he might have a chance of sneaking his way to somewhere useful. He just had no idea whether or not he could actually _get _there, this way. But he had no choice.

He had been pushing himself along for what he thought was probably ten minutes when the soles of his shoes touched a surface. He wriggled down and dropped toward it, terrified that he had reached a dead end.

To his relief, he had dropped into a much larger – much colder – space of some kind. He could stand, with his back bent, but there was no light, and he wasn't sure whether he had reached another tunnel, or a room, or something worse. Common sense told him that one ventilation shaft probably led to another, and that in all likelihood it was colder down here because he was nearer to the primary oxygen source in this sector, and there were probably circulation engines installed along the different corridors. Maybe he was near one. Maybe he had fallen into a maintenance tube with access to the generators – and to an exit.

He moved a little to the right and felt into the blackness for a wall of some kind, but there was none. He moved a little to the left and did the same thing – again, there was no wall. And since the air to the left seemed slightly less frozen, Dustil went in that direction, hoping he was heading away from the source. Based on what Kineth had said, he doubted it was safe to be near the source of a giant ventilation system. A burst of concentrated purifiers in his face would actually make it difficult to breathe – wouldn't it? He could have sworn it was true, but he wasn't sure. Maybe he'd heard it in a holovid, or from his mother. Maybe he was making it up. Or maybe it was something else he'd learned in class and paid no attention to.

He wished, for a bitter moment, that his teachers had warned him that he might actually _need _to know things later, if he didn't want to die.

Not that he would have believed them.

He felt his way along the tunnel wall in the cold darkness, struggling not to lose his laceless left shoe, and struggling to keep his focus. His head felt light, whether because of the cold or the concentrated air, he didn't know. He could only edge forward, listening. For what, he wasn't sure. It was silent of voices and footsteps down here; there were no shouts, there was no crying, no blaster or laser fire, no crashing buildings, no laughing Sith. There was only the arrhythmic, hollow clunking of machinery at work, the humming of ship systems shooting power through the framework all around him, and the faint vibration – imagined or not – of the ship's engines carrying him through space to some unknown destination, swelling through the tunnel wall beneath his fingertips.

Dustil pressed his palm to the wall to feel it better, and he suddenly wished he didn't have the purge cycle to worry about. He felt oddly certain that he wouldn't have minded staying down here, alone in the ship. He wasn't sure that he wanted to find the end of the tunnel. He didn't know who would be waiting there, or what they would do to him. He didn't much want to find out.

But he was the only one free to find a commpanel. Others depended on him for their lives. And his father would not have stopped.

Dustil pressed on, trying not to think about what might happen next, though he couldn't help a few terrifying bouts of imagination. He tried to smother those thoughts and concentrate on the sounds of the tunnel, and he found it wasn't all that difficult. After all, there was no longer any point in wondering what would happen. It was a waste of time. It wasn't as though he could predict anything anymore – not even the simplest things could be taken for granted. Yesterday, he had thought he might get a surprise quiz. Instead, not thirty seconds later, he had watched people get crushed to death.

He laughed a little, in spite of himself, at how ludicrous it was. When his laughter escaped him, it surprised him; it echoed in the tunnel in a soft, frightening way, and he shivered and sobered. There was nothing funny about any of this. He clenched his fists to focus himself, and was surprised to find that he had something gripped tightly in his left hand. He felt it with his thumb – a small, flat, slender rectangle.

Kineth's rank bar.

Dustil bowed his head for a moment, and the urge to cry almost overwhelmed him. Down here in the darkness, no one could see or hear him. And he had a feeling – he was not sure, but he _was_ sure – that Kineth was already dead. The man had saved his life. Both of them had – Kineth and Baden. Both of them had been everything Dustil had always idolized in the Republic; they had done everything he would have expected from heroes.

He slipped the rank bar deep into his pocket. When he saw his father again, he would show it to him. He'd tell him how Kineth had remembered him from that battle. He'd tell him how Baden had fought off the Sith and how he had died. He'd tell him everything. And his dad would make sure that Kineth and Baden got medals, or some other sort of honor. His dad would make sure that their families knew how brave they had been, in the end. Not that it mattered, once a person was dead.

But still.

The sudden vision of telling all this to his father was so real that it gave Dustil a new surge of courage. He had a strong, strange feeling that he _would_ tell this story to his dad. He would see him again. He knew it, as surely as he knew that Kineth's lifeless body was now being carried to the airlock, and some of the fear left him. He picked up his pace as he continued through the shaft, and he had gone no more than ten steps when he saw the faint glow of gray light in the distance. He hurried toward it.

He had reached an opening in the tunnel floor that sloped deeper into the ship, leading to some gloomily lit area. Dustil calculated that if he climbed into it, there was a good chance that he would be sliding straight into the cargo hold. He also considered that, like the ventilation shaft on the prison level, the end of this one might be capped by a slatted panel that would be difficult to dislodge, now that he had only his own strength to rely on.

"I can either give it a try," he muttered to himself, "or I can die in here."

An empty, roaring noise rose in the air around him, and a burst of frozen air caught him fully in the back, sending him stumbling. The pump cycle had begun.

He had to get out of here. Now.

Dustil crouched down, braced his palms on either side of the shaft, and shimmied feet-first into it.

This shaft was as cramped as the first, and Dustil realized, as he squeezed himself into it, that he had been badly bruised and scratched in his efforts to wriggle down to this level. He hadn't felt any of it at first, but now that the walls pressing him again, he was made aware of his injuries. His wounded shoulder, in particular, ached like hell.

It hardly mattered. He wriggled downward with no consideration for the pain, and eventually he reached the end of the shaft. He had been right in assuming that he would find himself caged in by a panel, but it was easier to leverage his strength from this position, and so he tried not to panic. He bent both his legs as much as he could and kicked out against the panel. He felt it give. Another kick or two, and he would be free. Of course, he was making a racket, and if there were any guards down here, they'd come for him.

He had no real choice.

Dustil kicked again, and one side of the panel came free. He wished the shaft were large enough for him to wriggle himself around to face the panel, so that he could use his hands to keep it from falling as he dislodged the other side of it. But it wasn't, so he kicked again, and the panel fell out of its frame.

Dustil winced when he heard the thud and clang of the panel against the floor, and he waited to hear the pounding of angry footsteps – but there were none. Maybe the roar of the pump cycle had covered up the noise of his kicking. Quickly, he slithered out of the shaft, feeling for the floor with the bottoms of his boots, which crunched against several things he could not identify. He arched his back when his feet touched the ground, and managed to snake his way out of the shaft altogether. He dropped into a crouch, looked around, and realized why no one had heard him.

He wasn't in a cargo hold. Instead, he was in another square space of some kind, small and cramped… but not a shaft at all. It seemed to be the inside of some sort of service crate. A lift for delivering damaged droids to the maintenance level, he guessed; he was surrounded by droid parts, poking him in the back and legs and in pieces under his feet. In any case, he had only two ways out of the crate. Either he could climb back out the way he had come in, or he could try to make the service lift move.

The button to move it, of course, was probably located somewhere on the outside. The lift was in poor repair, and there was a horizontal space big enough for his arm to slide through – the button might have been on the outside of that. But he would have to find some way to push it without getting his arm ripped off.

Dustil dug through the remains at his feet, picked up a droid arm and shoved it through the horizontal space, through which the limited light was flooding. He hoped there was no one outside the door who would see the droid arm flailing from the lift, and he moved it around, trying to find the button panel as quickly as possible.

When the crate dropped alarmingly, Dustil realized he must have brushed the button by accident; his heart jolted and he jumped back, but the lift did not continue to move. The droid arm stayed caught between the lift frame and the shaft wall and ripped with a terrible screech, jerking the lift and making it stick for another terrifying moment, before the pressure finally ripped it completely apart. Breathing hard, Dustil rode downward, now disoriented and not sure where he would end up. He only hoped that no one had heard the noise.

The lift doors opened. The crate shot out of the shaft and rolled into the room, and the lift doors slid shut behind it.

Dustil poked his head out of the service crate and looked around. He found himself in a tiny, cluttered room full of damaged machinery and several intact droids. It looked like a trash heap. He hoped it meant that he had reached the maintenance bays. If he had, then the hangar bays were not far off.

No sooner had he shown his face than the droids stored down here began to beep and whistle at him in alarm. Dustil scrambled out of the crate with damaged droid parts clinging to his clothes, and made a dash for the exit, though he had no idea where it was.

He found a small door and tried the panel; to his relief, it beeped and the door slid open. He slipped out of the tiny scrap room and into a dark corridor, which he crept down, wracking his mind for memory of the schematics.

At the end of the dark corridor there was another small door. Dustil opened it slowly, and stepped into a vast, dimly lit room empty of people and droids. Instead, it was crammed with stacks of crates and trunks, piled so high that they made a maze of corridors in the giant room.

It was, unmistakably, the cargo hold. He had found it. He had been right about this level, and he now knew exactly where he was – even under the circumstances, he couldn't help a twinge of pride. Maybe he hadn't learned anything else, but his hours of obsessive schematic study were coming in pretty handy.

He stifled a sudden, violent sneeze; he was coated with dust motes that had been sucked into the ventilation system for purging. He wiped his face, and was grimly surprised to find blood on his hands. He had really been scratched up, in the tighter vents, and probably by the broken droid bits as well – but there wasn't time to think about that. Still shivering from the frozen air, he brushed broken machinery from his trousers and rubbed his nose on his shirtsleeve in an effort to get the dust out, as he tried to decide where to go next.

The cargo hold was barely lit and apparently unguarded, and there were plenty of niches in which to hide among the maze of crates. Dustil wondered briefly if it might be wise to stay right where he was until this ship landed again, maybe crawl into a crate or something and hope to sneak out when they weren't in hyperspace.

He discarded the idea for two reasons. First, no matter how stupid the Sith were, they would eventually realize he was missing and they would come looking for him. Second, if he hid here and didn't try to send a signal, he would be leaving all the others to die.

Dustil began to prowl the perimeter of the hold, taking care to step silently, staying behind boxes and peering between stacked crates to be sure he was really alone. He knew that there had to be blasters or something around here somewhere, and he wondered if he should look around for a weapon, even though he had no idea how to use one.

He had just decided to lift the top of the nearest crate when a male voice from his left nearly frightened him out of his skin.

"I'm so damned sick of Pazaak." It was half statement, half annoyed sigh, and it came from beyond the stacked crates that made a corridor wall to Dustil's left. He froze, barely breathing, and listened.

The reply was slow and amused, and spoken by what seemed to be a female, in a language Dustil did not recognize.

"Speak Basic, would you?" snapped the first voice. "Have the decency to insult me to my face."

"I only said, we do not have to play again," came the slow, thickly accented woman's voice. "But if you wish to lose more credits, I am always happy to oblige you."

"You're cheating."

"You would like to think so, yes."

The man made a noise of irritation. "I'll kill someone if I have to play another round of this ridiculous game," he said, "but there's nothing else to _do _down here. I'll never be promoted if all I'm allowed to do is babysit a bunch of boxes. There's no prestige in it."

"No," said the woman. "But opportunity is often disguised."

Dustil's heart knocked. _He _was their opportunity. If they found him here and brought him to their superiors, they would probably look pretty good. He had to be utterly silent, and he had to find a way out of this room. The trouble was, if he remembered the layout correctly, they were parked right in front of the exit to the maintenance lift.

But there was also a door all the way across the hold, or at least there should be. Dustil narrowed his eyes and tried to remember what was behind it, and he recalled with a sinking heart that it was a storage armory, which meant that it would certainly be guarded and probably locked tight, leaving him no avenue of escape. Still, he had to try.

Silently, picking up his feet with incredible care and setting them down toe-heel, Dustil picked his way through the crates and trunks to the far side of the hold. He could still hear the murmurs of the two guards, but obviously they had not heard him. He held his breath as he drew nearer to the starboard wall, and made sure to stay concealed behind high stacks of cargo, until he reached the spot where he knew the door was supposed to be.

Slowly, he tilted his head and peeked to see if there was a guard manning this side of the door. To his relief, there wasn't – the guards must have been inside the room.

Outside, there was a commpanel instead.

Dustil nearly let out an elated cry, but he was not that foolish. He smothered his excitement and hurried to the console, mentally repeating the sequence of numbers Kineth had entrusted to him, and he was glad to find that, for once, he had remembered something that someone had taught him. Apparently in life-or-death situations, he was a better than average student.

The blue glow of the console stared up at him when he reached it, and Dustil put shaking fingertips to the keys. Quickly, he entered the sequence he had been taught, and words blinked to life on the screen.

DISTRESS BEACONS ACCESSED. ENTER COMMAND.

His heart thudding, Dustil commanded the beacons to send a sublight universal distress signal, just like Kineth had told him. To any ship in the sector. They didn't have anything to lose. He could not quite believe what he was doing. Slicing into a Sith ship's computer system and using its own tools against it – again, it was the sort of thing that happened only in holovids. He could not make it seem real, even though he was right in the middle of it.

He logged out of the console, flush with his own success, and decided to wait down here until the guards left or fell asleep, giving him access to the lift. If he could get to the lift, he could reach the maintenance level. From the maintenance level, he could sneak into the fighter bays. And there, even if he couldn't open the hangar doors or pilot a ship himself, he could at least sneak into one and wait for it to be deployed.

Although, he thought suddenly, what was the point of leaving this cruiser, now that he had sent the distress signal? Surely the Republic would arrive now – they would board the ship and rescue the prisoners. It was better to stay here until they came. Dustil wondered if he should try to make it back up to the prison cells and act as if nothing had happened – was it best to go where he knew the Republic soldiers would look for him? It might be safer to stay down here, but would they know to find him down here, when they came to the rescue? He didn't want to be left behind.

He also didn't want to get stuck in those tight shafts, trying to shimmy back up. And he had no way of knowing whether he could get the service lift to pick him up again.

He would have to try the maintenance lift, beyond the guards.

Dustil sneaked back in between the walls of stacked cargo crates, to where he could hear the guards speaking again. They were still playing Pazaak, but eventually they would have to go and get food, or go to the fresher. He made his way along the crates, peering between the cracks to try to get a glimpse of his exit. He could just make out a thin slice of one of the guards and, beyond him, more crates. He couldn't see the lift at all.

He wondered if maybe the guards couldn't see it, either.

Dustil went swiftly and silently to the far end of the crate stacks, and peered to his right. Between the wall of the hold and the wall of crates, there was a narrow passageway, just wide enough for him to squeeze through, if he turned sideways. If he wasn't careful, he would knock over the crates, or at least cause a racket, but he didn't see much of an option. Slowly, he wedged himself in between the wall and the crates, turning his feet out and twisting his head to the side to make it fit. His cheeks, already bruised and scratched from squeezing through shafts, were rubbed uncomfortably again by the crates and the wall, but he tried not to pay attention. All that mattered was reaching the elevator unseen.

When he came to the end of the narrow pass, Dustil very slowly peered around the corner of the crates, to see whether the guards could spy him from where he was. But they had set up their Pazaak game toward the center of the hold, behind the first wall of crates, and they were hidden from him, which meant that they could see neither him nor the lift.

But Dustil could see it.

His head light with adrenaline, his heart slamming in his chest, Dustil slipped out from his hiding place, pushed off the wall and sprinted to the lift. He pushed the button and the doors slid open with a heavy noise that suggested the thing wasn't being well maintained. Dustil launched himself into it and pressed the button for the maintenance corridor.

"Did you hear that?" It was the woman's voice. "The lift."

"Let's see to it."

Dustil heard them get up; he heard their footsteps move toward him; he pressed the button repeatedly and prayed for the lift doors to slide shut.

The man was first around the corner of crates, and he caught sight of Dustil just as the doors began to close. He wore Sith armor, but no helmet, and though he held his blaster at the ready, he nearly fumbled it when he saw Dustil.

"What the –" he began, startled. "It's a kid!"

The lift doors slammed shut, and Dustil was riding up to the maintenance corridor, though his blood was racing so hard that he thought he might pass out. They knew he was loose now, if they hadn't known it before. They knew where he was, and they knew how to find him.

He was done for.

Unless he could make it to a fighter and hide out.

The doors opened, and Dustil did not wait – he had no time for sneaking or for silence. He bolted out of the lift and hurtled down the corridor, making a straight shot for the fighter bay doors. It didn't matter if it was a slim hope – he would just have to get into one of the snubs and lie low, and hope that it landed somewhere habitable.

He wished he were his father. If his father were in this situation, he'd just take one of the snubs and blast his way through the hangar doors. He'd get out of here on his own; he wouldn't have to wait for some Sith to fly him out.

But he was not his father. And his father was not here. Dustil continued to run flat out, clinging to the small hope he had left.

He had his fingertips on the computer console beside the fighter bay doors before he was seized from behind by a pair of rough hands and thrown against the corridor wall.

His face slammed plasteel and his teeth gouged the flesh of his lip – the bone of his eyebrow cracked against the wall – his injured shoulder erupted in pain as though someone had lit it on fire, and he hissed a breath of wounded fury. He turned on his aggressor and found himself face to face not with one Sith soldier, but with six of them, all in full armor, all wearing helmets, all holding blasters that were pointed at his chest.

Dustil looked at the dark, deadly ends of their muzzles, and though he was in pain and out of breath, he suddenly felt quite separate from his body. This was really it. People died like this in war, it happened all the time, and he was going to be one of them.

Something was dripping down his chin. He touched it with his fingers and looked down. His fingers were slick with blood.

"You came all this way for nothing," sneered the soldier who stood directly before him. "Did you think you could escape, boy? Answer me."

Dustil made no sound. It was the voice of the soldier who had thrust the blade through Baden's back. Dustil thought of how much he wanted the soldier in front of him to die, and he stared at his glinting visor with only that thought in his mind. He wanted the man to know how much he hated him.

"Answer me," the man repeated impatiently, and he slammed Dustil in the chest with the muzzle of his blaster rifle, making him groan in pain and flattening him to the wall, wondering if his ribs were broken. "Or do you want to die?"

"You're going to kill me anyway," Dustil spat, and the blood on his mouth flecked the silver armor of the soldier before him. "So who cares what I say?"

The soldier laughed, and so did a few of his fellows. "What's your name, boy?"

Dustil looked from one faceless visor to the next.

"Your _name_." The soldier struck him again in the chest, and Dustil gasped in spite of himself.

"D – Dustil –" he said, but he bit his tongue before giving them his last name. Baden and Kineth had both recognized Onasi, and these men were likely to have heard the name as well. He didn't want to be made some kind of example, like Baden had said.

"Dustil?" The soldier sounded amused. "You're a cut above the other captives, Dustil. You have a will to survive. Making it all the way to this level of the ship… keying in the distress signal… very well done indeed. Spineless, crying little brats are of no use to us, but perhaps _you_ will make a proper Sith, after all."

"I'll _never_ be a Sith," Dustil shouted recklessly, remembering Baden's final words. "To _hell_ with the Sith!"

Swift and without warning, the soldier turned his blaster over in his hands and struck Dustil in the head with the butt end of it.

"Or perhaps not," said the soldier, as Dustil staggered and tried to keep his feet, moaning in pain. He could barely see. There appeared to be not six soldiers around him, but twelve. "You don't seem to know when to keep your mouth shut, and that will have to change."

Dustil gritted his teeth and held his head with both hands.

"You… _told_ me… to answer…"

"Are you trying to be a big man, like the officers we captured?" taunted the soldier, sliding his blaster into its harness and pulling his vibroblade instead. "Is that what you want? To die like them?" He put the tip of the vibroblade to Dustil's stomach, just below his ribcage, and pressed it slightly forward to let Dustil feel how sharp it was. The energy cell wasn't activated yet, but it didn't need to be, to cut through him. "I can give you a hero's end, Dustil. You can die like a decorated soldier of the Republic, if that is your dream. Just say the word."

Dustil wanted to shout again – he wanted to kick out, to curse, to say something brave, even if it would get him killed.

But he didn't want to die. He didn't want the blade to cut through his body – it frightened him to think of how much it would hurt – it frightened him to think that he might stop living, in just a moment, and that this man had the power to make that decision.

Dustil turned his head silently away and pressed his bleeding lips shut.

"Smart boy," said the soldier quietly, and he sheathed the blade again. "Let it be your first lesson from a Sith, Dustil – there _are_ no heroes. There are only living men, and dead ones. Smart men, and fools. Survival is what matters. Remember that."

Dustil breathed irregularly, and tried not to listen.

But he heard.

"Do you want to survive, Dustil?"

He licked his lips and tasted the blood. He nodded.

"Then you'll work for us here, on the _Overshadow_."

Dustil bucked involuntarily and swung his head forward to look at the soldier in disbelief. He would not work for the Sith.

"I see you have reservations." The soldier still sounded disgustingly amused – Dustil didn't know how these people managed to find such humor in the suffering of others. "But even if you care nothing for your own survival, I'm sure you would rather we didn't execute the other children."

Dustil stared at him. "What?" he asked faintly.

"The other children," the soldier repeated, his voice like a careless shrug. "The little boy who won't stop crying, and the other one who doesn't have a spine – and all those little girls, I'm not sure if you ever saw them. The ones who don't know their way around this ship as well as you do."

"What about them?" Dustil said, his voice low.

"They're useless to us. I told you, spineless brats are not assets to the Sith – I don't care if they're supposedly Force _sensitive_." The soldier spoke the words with open derision. "They'll all be thrown into an asteroid field on my command."

"But you _can't_ –" Dustil stopped, because he realized that he was wrong.

"I can," said the soldier, and Dustil thought he could hear the man smiling. "And I will. Unless you agree to do as you're told, without argument – and without escape attempts. Not that I can't stop you, but it's tedious. Try it again, and there will be no warnings. You will die."

Dustil had no idea what to think. "What… do you want me to do?" he asked.

"Serve on the _Overshadow_," said the soldier. "In whatever capacity I deem necessary.

"And if I do…" Dustil hesitated. He could not believe he was considering it. "If I do, you'll leave the other kids alone?"

"So long as you obey me. What is your decision?"

Dustil considered his situation. He had sent the distress signal, and so until the Republic came to help them, he had done all he could. Now he had his own life to save, and the lives of the others. If that meant he had to pretend to serve the Sith for a day or two… or a little while…

"Fine," he said. "I'll…" He could not bring himself to say that he would obey. "I'll work," he finished.

It had to be better than dying.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

"Capital ships come equipped with three major types of propulsion systems."

Dustil was talking to himself. He had been talking to himself for days. It might have been weeks. He had lost count.

"Hyperdrive, sublight, and orbital maneuvering repulsorjets," he continued. "Hyperdrive moves you through hyperspace, sublight moves you through realspace, and orbital jets maneuver in close quarters to a planet's gravity. Well, in close quarters with other ships you don't want to damage, at least. Got that, XR?"

"I hardly need a lecture on the matter from a sentient."

Dustil snorted, and continued his work. It was the dullest work he had ever done in his life, including homework. He would have taken any amount of school over janitorial duties on the _Overshadow_, work that involved pacing alone for hours on the maintenance sublevels – the deepest, hottest, sweatiest pit of the ship – wiping down surfaces, moving levers and staring at safety levels. In all his dreams of serving on a Republic cruiser, this scenario had never touched his mind.

"You going to kill me, XR?"

"I am programmed to keep you from leaving this area. If that requires killing you, then I will do so with pleasure."

Dustil glanced at the droid. It wasn't a designation he was familiar with, and it seemed to be programmed only to follow him around and threaten him. "You know, if you wanted to kill me, you wouldn't be able to," he said, and he turned back to the glowing green levels display. "You're not equipped, you're due for a memory wipe, and your system needs repairs. You're a malfunction waiting to happen."

"You never fail to inform me of this."

"Yeah, well. I'm bored." Dustil sighed and scratched the back of his neck. He was desperately bored, he was filthy and sweaty, and he was beginning to doubt that the Republic was ever going to come.

His faith had died slowly. For the first few days, he had waited, on edge, for the sounds of laser fire, for the panic of combat wings being scrambled for battle, though he was certain that all the Sith's efforts would be in vain. He had been sure, beyond a doubt, that his distress signal would have reached someone, somewhere. There was no way it could have gone totally unnoticed, and if it had been received, then it would have been recognized as a Republic distress signal – they would know that one of their own was in trouble. He didn't understand how anyone could possibly ignore that.

But no one had arrived.

"Perhaps I cannot kill you," said XR-87 in his toneless, almost bored voice. "But if you attempted to escape the utility levels, I would alert the soldiers who positioned me here, and they would kill you for me."

"It wouldn't be for _you_," Dustil muttered. "They'd do it for fun. They're sickos."

"I will be sure to tell them you think so."

Dustil glared at the droid. "You try it," he warned, "and I'll rip out your control cluster with my bare hands, you hear me?"

XR-87 did not stir. "Being that I am not an organic sentient, and therefore cannot technically be killed, you must imagine how alarmed I am by your physical threats."

Dustil narrowed his eyes, turned back to the glowing safety levels and began to carefully wipe down the panel into which they were set. He had been given the lowest possible job on the _Overshadow,_ a job that would normally have been done by a basic model maintenance droid. It was nothing but the small fine-tuning and cleaning that was necessary to keep a system at optimal. He didn't actually care if the system was at optimal, but the soldier who had stuck him down here had anticipated his apathy.

_"You may be tempted to neglect a safety level or to overload an injector,"_ he had said coldly, shoving Dustil into the first of many small, hot, clanking rooms along the corridor. _"But you would be deluding yourself. You haven't been left in arm's reach of anything important. If there were to be a serious malfunction in this area, the ship would continue to operate quite smoothly. You, however, would be melted in the localized plasma burst. That is what happened to the last hostage we assigned to these maintenance levels – think of it as incentive to do your job perfectly."_

And then the soldier had left him there, with very little instruction and nothing but a sarcastic droid for company.

Dustil supposed it could be worse. He just couldn't think how.

"I bet you were doing this job before me, weren't you, XR?" he asked, taking care not to push the levers out of their places as he cleaned around them.

"I was _not_," replied XR instantly, in a tone that did not quite manage to be expressionless. "I am not a _main_tenance droid."

"Well don't get all insulted," said Dustil, who was amused in spite of himself. "So, what're you doing on the maintenance level if you're not a maintenance droid?"

"I am guarding you," replied XR.

"Yeah, but what's your primary function?"

"At the moment, my primary function is to see that you are destroyed if you disobey."

Dustil abandoned his cleaning and walked over to the console to check the pressure and temperature levels. "So you're a broken down security droid," he said. "Okay."

"You are entirely incorrect."

Dustil glanced back at XR and shrugged. "Whatever, security droid."

He had never realized that it was possible for a droid to show fury, but XR managed it. His arm extensions jerked back in their sockets with a short screech, and his head unit seemed to shiver with rage.

"I," said XR, "am of a designation that none of the so-called _technicians_ on this cruiser is capable of maintaining, which is why, when I malfunctioned, I was not repaired."

Dustil was surprised. "Why, are you rare or something?"

"Rare?" XR repeated. "Somewhat, but that is not the material point. I am simply extraordinarily advanced."

"Yeah, I can tell," said Dustil, and he grinned for the first time in days. There had been nothing to cheer him up – his shoulder was still throbbing, he had terrible nightmares about the Dark Jedi and Baden and his school, and he missed his parents and Telos so much he couldn't bear to think about it. But harassing XR was kind of entertaining.

XR's slitted purple eye panels glinted. "It is hardly my fault," he said coldly, "if the technical crew of the _Overshadow_ is unequal to my programming."

Dustil gave XR a quick once-over. He didn't look so remarkable. "There's thousands of people on a cruiser this size," he replied. "Thousands of trained crewmembers, thousands of troops – one of them's got to know how to deal with you."

"Perhaps if you were even remotely correct, then you would have a point."

Dustil frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," said XR, in a tone of exaggerated patience, "that if there _were_ thousands of trained crewmembers and thousands of troops on the _Overshadow_, then my odds of being repaired would indeed be better."

"But…" Dustil looked blankly at the droid. "But there are that many. People, I mean. It takes that many people to crew a ship like this."

XR was silent.

"Are you saying…" Dustil turned away from the console and peered at XR. In the hollows of his memory, something echoed – something his father had told him months ago, something about the war and the Sith, something that hadn't centered around the excitement of battle. Something Dustil had dismissed. "Are you saying there aren't enough Sith on this ship to crew it properly?"

XR made a soft noise. It could have been a standard mechanical beep signifying anything simply technical, but it sounded like contempt.

"My father said…" Dustil squinted, and searched the backlogs of his brain for his father's voice, and suddenly he heard it clearly, like a recording that he had filed away. "He said the Sith have more ships than they have soldiers," he continued, remembering. "He said they can't make an army of men as fast as they can make an army of ships. He said it's… it's their greatest weakness. It gives the Republic an advantage, even if the Sith don't recognize it."

XR made another soft, contemptuous noise, and Dustil glared at him.

"What?" he demanded. "It's true."

"It is not true in the least," XR replied. "Your father, I'm afraid, is a tactical simpleton, if that is what he told you."

Dustil bristled. "You shut up about my dad," he said, his voice low. "Or I'll shove you in the incinerator."

"How frightened I am." XR had reverted to sounding very bored. "Very well, if you have no interest in hearing the truth, I certainly have no interest in enlightening you. We have exchanged quite enough words for today."

Dustil wasn't satisfied. "You never told me what you're really supposed to _do_," he said.

The droid did not reply.

"And I want to know what you were going to tell me about the tactics," Dustil continued angrily. "Come on."

XR-87 was silent.

It was days – perhaps two, perhaps several – before XR answered Dustil again, and in the surrounding silence, Dustil had ample time to sink into a serious depression. It was a kind of misery he had never known. It wasn't like the hot-tempered anguish of being grounded, or sent to his room, or punished in school – this was actual pain, physical and mental. His shoulder had not stopped burning, he had not had a moment's comfort in the sweltering, filthy heat of the cruiser's underbelly, and his fear and loneliness were acute. He was a hostage and a slave. He had a right to be miserable.

And so he sank into misery. A sort of glaze went up over his eyes; he barely saw what he was doing and he didn't care to try. He wanted his mother. He wanted a bed. He wanted something to eat – there were dispensers, down here, but what they produced tasted like waste, and Dustil had every reason to believe that he was eating the recycled remnants of Sith soldiers' meals. He wanted clean clothes, he wanted to use a fresher to get the grime off his skin, he wanted to go back to the moment before his school had exploded and freeze time.

He wanted his father to arrive.

He thought about his father more than he thought about anything else, but he didn't know whether the image in his mind was comforting, or whether it only made things worse. It didn't matter. He couldn't make the image go away, and he wasn't sure he wanted to. His father's face as he remembered it, bending over him in the street after he had fallen from the speeder. His father's face as Kineth had described it, grinning and confident, even after heated battle. Every time Dustil saw that grin in his mind's eye, he pined to see it appear in the flesh. The desire was so deep that it was worse than any other pain he suffered – and yet he continued to function. He told himself that he could endure anything, because his father would have endured it, and he told himself that one day soon, when he told this whole story, his father would be so proud of him for surviving like this that it would all be worth it. His father would tell him how courageous he was, and how much he loved him, and what a great soldier he had become.

Unless his father was already dead in the war. It was the only reason Dustil could think of that he wouldn't have come for him by now.

More than once, overcome by this thought, Dustil curled up in the dark corner of one utility room or another and shuddered until he passed out, while XR watched him mercilessly.

It was at least another week before reality hit Dustil smack in the gut, snapping him out of depression and throwing him into a tailspin of active despair. He was never getting out of here. There was no reason he could think of why the Sith would ever let him out of here. He might be kept prisoner on the maintenance level for months – years, even. It was an incomprehensible fate, but he couldn't imagine what might change it; there had been no sign of a Republic rescue attempt, and no one had come down to check on his well being since he had been dumped in the first utility room. The Sith could have cared less if he lived or died.

Except that he was useful.

Dustil wondered if it was true, what his father had suggested and XR had confirmed. Were there really not enough Sith soldiers to crew their fleet? If that was the case, then they needed every drudge they could get, him included. Maybe as long as they needed him, they'd at least keep him alive – though it wasn't much of a life. He tried to take comfort in the fact that somewhere on the ship there were others, just like him, who wanted to get out just as badly. He wondered if the Sith had put all of them to work – if Shaardan and the younger boy and all the girls had been assigned to slave labor in different sectors.

It would have made sense.

"That depends on your definition of sense," said XR-87, when Dustil posed the theory to him. "Do the other young sentients share your familiarity with Omega-class capital ships?"

Dustil shrugged, flicking his eyes from the safety levels to the comm keyboard as he entered exactly what he saw. "Does it matter?" he replied. "It's not like I know anything about maintenance – I only know schematics. I never saw a plasma flow regulator in my life, before I got thrown down here."

"I don't suggest you share that information with anyone else," said XR dryly. "It is very likely that your pointless show of bravado with the distress beacons led your captors to believe that you possess basic technical skills." He paused. "Of course, given their so-called _competency_, it is not surprising that they grossly overestimated your capabilities."

Dustil didn't have the heart to muster a comeback. XR's insults had stopped being funny days ago. "Yeah, whatever," he said quietly, and then he frowned. "How did you know about the distress beacons?"

"I was briefed before being assigned to guard duty," said XR, sounding as though it pained him to have to state something so obvious. "Naturally, I know everything about you that the Sith know."

"Goody for you." Dustil completed the key sequence and logged out of the commpanel. He pushed back his sweaty hair and trudged out into the corridor, where he made a sharp, immediate turn into another tiny utility chamber to begin the process all over again with another set of levels. Log in, clean surfaces, check overall status, report errors, check levels, enter sequence, log out. It interested him, in a detached way, to realize how quickly he had become accustomed to a routine that would have seemed impossible, just a month ago.

A month. Was that true? Dustil really wasn't sure, and that was one of the strangest elements of his new life. He had always taken it for granted that he would know what day it was, but in a world stripped of familiar routines, time lacked all units of measurement. School hours, after school activities, mealtimes, bedtime, weekends, vacations – Dustil had never realized what luxuries they all were.

"So what do you know about me, then?" he asked, as he worked.

"A better question," replied XR, "is what do the _Sith_ know about you, as they are the ones who hold your life in their hands."

"Fine – what do the _Sith_ know about me?" Dustil threw back, irritated.

"Your name is Dustil," said XR, in the toneless recitation of an information console. "You are Telosian. You are approximately twelve years of age –"

"I'm thirteen," Dustil said immediately. "Almost fourteen."

XR released a sound of impatience. "You were discovered thirty meters west of the destroyed gymnasium structure at what used to be Telosian Military Elementary Educational Facility Number Eight. You were rendered unconscious by a Dark Jedi, taken hostage on the _Overshadow_ and abducted from Telos by the Sith."

Dustil was impressed, for a weird, split second, by the way it all sounded. It was kind of heroic. Sort of. Like a holovid – only he had _lived_ it. He was living it still.

"It was reported that you were discovered with two other child sentients, both of whom were released due to uselessness. You were retained here, along with several others, for evaluation of possible Force sensitivity."

Dustil jumped in his skin.

He had completely forgotten about being called Force sensitive – but the words had been spoken. Twice. Kineth had said them, and so had the soldier who had beaten him with the blaster. Both times, the suggestion had been dropped in such surreal moments that they had barely glanced across his consciousness before vanishing. There had been so much to fear, and so much to adjust to, that survival had stayed uppermost in his mind. The idea that the Force might be in _him_ had gone right out of his head.

It couldn't possibly be true. Dustil knew that. He knew the Force was real – lots of people didn't believe in it, but his father had seen real Jedi in action in the wars, and his father wouldn't lie. The Force existed. But it wasn't for regular people – the Force was something the Jedi used, not him. The fact that anyone thought differently… it was frankly unbelievable.

Still, unlikely as it was, he couldn't help a quiet thrill of hope. Was that what the Dark Jedi had meant, when she had called him unexpected? Was it… true? What would it mean?

"You witnessed the rather ignoble execution of a Republic officer," XR continued, "and were then assisted in an escape attempt by a second officer, who was also summarily executed."

Dustil slipped his hand into his pocket and felt for Kineth's rank bar. It was still there. He closed his fist around it.

"You succeeded in communicating a Republic distress signal but failed in your escape. You were beaten in the head and committed to slave labor in the utility chambers, where you have spent the last twenty-three days performing basic maintenance routines." XR completed his recitation and went silent.

Dustil craned his neck to look at the droid. He raised an eyebrow. "That's all they know?" he asked. "That's it?"

XR did not bother to reply.

"So…" Dustil wondered if it was wise to ask the next question, but decided to risk it. "They don't know my last name?"

"I was not informed of it," said XR. "And as you are supremely unimportant, I do not see why they would bother to conceal your identity. Therefore, it is my opinion that they do not know your last name. It is my further opinion that they do not _care_."

Dustil turned back to the commpanel and narrowed his eyes. They might care, if they knew. And they should have known – the Dark Jedi had torn the information from him. There was at least one Sith who knew he was an Onasi.

"That Dark Jedi who knocked me out – she's on the ship, right?"

"There are no trained Force users on the _Overshadow_ at this time."

Dustil stopped in his work and turned to stare at the droid. "No Force users?" he repeated. "But I thought… I mean, if we're all supposed to be evaluated for Force sensitivity… wouldn't a Jedi have to do that?"

"What makes you think they didn't evaluate you already, and find you lacking?" replied XR. "It would explain why they abandoned you here with no further assessment."

Dustil was afraid for a moment that XR was right, but he quickly shook his head. "No," he said. "That doesn't make any sense. They would have told you something like that when they debriefed you, since they told you everything else."

XR's eye panels glittered. "As that is the first sign of rational capacity you have shown," he said, sounding amused, "I am noting it aloud."

Dustil was flattered in spite of himself, but he only shrugged, tossed his head, and turned back to his work. "What happened to you anyway?" he asked, as he checked pressure gauges.

"I'm afraid you will have to specify."

"Fine," Dustil said, not bothering to hide his annoyance. "If you're so advanced, and you're not usually a security droid, and you need someone to fix you up, then something must have happened to make you malfunction. What was it?"

XR gave a remarkably humanoid sigh. "You have seen for yourself the way these soldiers prefer brute strength to subtle maneuvering," he said. "Give them a few drinks, and they become no better than animals. A few of them engaged in a foolish brawl, and I was damaged in the fray. Imbeciles."

Dustil glanced briefly back at him. "You must want to get scrapped pretty bad," he said. "The way you talk."

"Your meaning?"

"You insult the Sith a lot," said Dustil bluntly. "Not that I care if you get dismantled, but wouldn't you rather stay in one piece?"

XR let out a noise like a low laugh.

"What?" Dustil snapped. He was in no mood to be mocked. "I'm sure they can hear everything we're saying. They're – they're probably monitoring _me_ through you."

XR laughed again, a disturbing sequence of droid hums and low-pitched whirring. "Of course they are," he said. "You are of primary importance to this battalion. Why, I would not be surprised if the Captain himself were personally monitoring your progress from morning till night, at the expense of all his other duties."

Dustil wondered how difficult it would be, really, to unscrew the droid's stupid head.

"That's not what I meant," he said, through gritted teeth. His head had begun to pound; he wasn't sure if it was a real headache or if it was droid-related. "I'm just saying, it's not exactly smart to go badmouthing the people who have the blasters."

"How quickly you learn," said XR softly. "And under normal circumstances, you would have a point. However, this situation is hardly standard."

"You don't say," muttered Dustil, wiping his hands on his shirt and placing his still-filthy fingertips on the comm keyboard. "And what would a standard situation be like for you, security droid?"

XR paused long enough that Dustil worried he might have decided to stop talking to him again. However, eventually, he spoke.

"I am accustomed," said XR, in a somewhat threatening tone, "to finishing conversations, rather than jumping haphazardly from topic to topic. We were discussing the other young sentients and where they might be, on the ship. Tell me – did they make attempts to escape or save themselves?"

"They couldn't." Dustil's nose had begun to run. He wiped it with his wrist before continuing to key in the sequence. "They were in detention cells."

"So were you."

"Yeah, but I got… lucky," said Dustil. He had an odd feeling, when he said it, like it wasn't quite true. "The energy barrier on my cell malfunctioned."

"So you believe in luck."

"Yeah, don't you?"

XR did not answer right away. "Fascinating," he said, after what seemed like several minutes. "Fascinating."

"What, me?"

"Hardly," replied XR. "It is my programming. It is… layered on this subject… which comes as something of a surprise to me, as no one has ever attempted to access my core beliefs."

"So what's your core belief?" asked Dustil, though in truth, he didn't care. He was just glad to have something to talk to again, even if it was XR. It didn't matter what they talked about. Anything was better than another long, terrible silence.

"As a droid…" said XR slowly, "my primary reason indicates that luck and coincidence are nonexistent. Mathematical odds explain all such phenomena. However…"

"Yeah?"

"However…" XR paused. "It seems that my logic, though flawless in fact, is not what I… _believe_." He sounded disturbed. "It would seem that my creator has superimposed a metaphysical belief onto my natural information systems, forcing me to accept a sentient-level truth in spite of what pure logic dictates."

"Why would they do that?" Dustil asked, though he was only mildly intrigued. He wiped sweat out of his eyes and keyed in the sequence of temperature levels.

"I do not believe this superimposition was intentional on the part of my creator," XR replied slowly, still sounding unsettled. "It seems to be… a residual emotional impression. It is as if I was programmed without being… programmed."

Dustil wasn't sure what to make of XR's revelation. It didn't make much sense to him, and it wasn't terribly interesting, and his eyes were blurring as he looked at the commpanel. He wiped them again. It didn't do any good; he could not focus.

He suddenly found he had to put out a hand and brace himself against the wall.

"I'm dizzy," he mumbled.

"Is that so?" replied XR, with mild interest. "I suppose it is unsurprising. The human body is more vulnerable than most – quite a susceptible system. I understand that symptoms of illness can be caused by a variety of factors. I hazard a guess that malnutrition is the cause."

It was true that Dustil hadn't eaten much for the last several days. Enough to keep going, but no more. Mostly because eating the stuff that came out of the dispensers made him want to be sick. But maybe not eating it had made him even sicker.

He wiped his nose again, shook his head to clear his blurry eyes, and pushed off the wall. But shaking his head did nothing to clear his vision; instead, his headache worsened. He rubbed the heel of his palm against his temple and winced. He'd just have to eat something now – that was all he needed. He'd be fine.

He went out of the chamber and down the hot, narrow corridor, blinking for focus, until he reached the old dispenser. Its lights had burned out, but Dustil had learned by experimentation which sockets produced what color gunk, and he marginally preferred the third dispenser from the right to any of the others. Still, all of it was foul.

He emptied the contents of the third dispenser into the palm of his hand and felt a fresh stab of fury. Eating like this – having to wipe his hands on his clothing – he had been reduced to an animal. He wasn't really sure why it made him so angry. The truth was, he had eaten with his fingers many times at home, and he remembered his mother shouting at him for wiping his hands on his clothing. He'd never been in any hurry to get in the refresher, either. But at home, it had been his choice to be disgusting. It had been laziness, carelessness. It was different down here, in the guts of this vessel, where there were no other options. It was degradation.

He ate the sludge anyway, because he was hungry and because his fingers were starting to shake. He couldn't remember being lightheaded like this. He tried not to taste what he was eating as it went down, and found it wasn't difficult; his nose was still running and he couldn't smell much. Taste and smell went together; that much he remembered from school. Not that it was useful information. Why did he only remember the things that didn't matter?

"How are you feeling now?" XR asked suddenly, making Dustil jump slightly and then wince again. The droid had sneaked up behind him, and Dustil was pretty sure that the damn machine didn't actually care how he was feeling. The way XR asked the question, it was more like he thought Dustil was an interesting science experiment.

He wiped his hands on his trousers, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His skin stunk like cleaning fluid, dirt, rank sweat and half-edible gunge, and he gagged slightly. He could definitely smell _that_.

Without answering XR, Dustil sniffled loudly, rubbed his nose on his sleeve, and held the back of his hand to his forehead. It was what his mother had always done, to test for his temperature when he complained he was sick. He could remember the last time he had played sick – a few months ago, at the most. He hadn't wanted to go to school that day. He had stayed up half the night messing around with the flight simulator, as usual, and had neglected to prepare for an important test. He had woken up groaning, hot and exhausted, with a badly pounding head. His mother had brushed back his hair and laid the back of her hand, cool and steady, against the skin of his forehead.

"_You're running a little temperature,"_ she had agreed. She had always seemed to know the exact state of him, even by fractions of degrees. He always wondered if it was because of her medical training, or if it was just something that all moms could do… or if she just knew _him_ that well. After all, the two of them had been all in all to each other, for long periods of time, for much of his life. When his father was away, which was most of the time, it was always just him and his mom.

And to his chagrin, she could read him like a book.

"_If you hadn't brought it on yourself, I'd feel very sorry for you,"_ she had said, smiling a little. _"Get up and get dressed."_

"_Mo-om…"_

"_Dustil, you know the rules."_

"_Ungh."_

"_Did you stay up half the night of your own free will?"_

It was such an old argument, and they had hashed it out so many times, that Dustil could still hear the echoes of it in his head, as if his mother were standing right beside him.

"_Yeah… I guess."_

"_And what is the rule about choices?"_

Dustil had made a pitiful noise. _"Please?"_

"_Honestly, Dustil, you know me better than that," _his mother had chided, still smiling slightly. _"What's the rule?"_

And he had sighed. _"Choices bring consequences," _he had muttered.

"_Yes they do."_ She had felt his head again and sighed. _"What's happening in school today? Anything important?"_

It had been on the tip of his tongue to lie. _"We… have an environmental studies test," _he had admitted.

"_Are you prepared for it?"_

"_Um."_

"_Oh, Dustil."_

Her disappointed voice had always cut far deeper than her angry one, and Dustil had squirmed at the sound of it. _"If – if you let me stay home, I'll study all day – I promise."_

She had gazed at him for a moment, and then she had left the room without a word. When she had returned, she'd held his studies pad and a portable diagrams projector in her hands.

"_I've sent a message to the school," _she had said, a little wryly. _"About how wrackingly ill you are. They hope you're better soon."_

Sick as he had felt, Dustil had grinned. _"Thanks, Mom – you're the best –"_

"_You won't think so when I've finished quizzing you."_

They had spent the day huddled up in his room, studying the environment of Telos, and eventually watching holovids and eating things they didn't usually eat. And as he had fallen asleep, his mother had stroked his hair and kissed his cheek.

He had aced that test.

Dustil sniffled again, but this time it wasn't because he felt sick. He hid his face from XR and wiped his nose and eyes with one angry swipe of his arm, and then he slid down the wall and sat beside the dispenser, not sure what to do. He was sick. He felt like he was burning up, though it could have just been the temperature of the utility level. His insides heaved and twisted, but maybe it was just because he was furious and sad. He wasn't sure. And either way, it wasn't like anyone was going to care.

Ten seconds later, he turned his head and vomited onto the grated metal floor.

"How unsightly," commented XR. "And what a waste of nutrients."

Dustil gargled and spat, too disgusted to reply. His stomach lurched again, and the rest of what he had eaten launched up from his guts and rocketed from his mouth, splattering onto the rest of the mess. He stared at the pool of gunk and acid, watching it drip through the holes in the floor, feeling the remnants of it slide down his chin. He couldn't remember the last time he had thrown up. All he knew was that he wanted to go to sleep, and he couldn't sprawl out here, next to the vomit. The sickly sweet stench of it was already making him gag again.

He tried to push himself to his feet.

"It is interesting to note how quickly you were overtaken by this illness," said XR. "I would have expected a more gradual decline."

Dustil staggered to his feet and spat again into the pool of sick, trying to get the taste out of his mouth and the burn out of his nose. He needed water. He turned back to the dispenser, leaned heavily on it with one hand, and used the other as a shallow cup to bring the fluid to his mouth. It tasted like metal, but he kept drinking.

As soon as there was enough of it in him to make a difference, he doubled over and vomited again.

Dustil hung there, his hands on his knees, his limbs trembling. He felt suddenly very cold, even in the steaming heat of the utility level, and his teeth began to chatter.

"I wonder what it is," mused XR. "I can rule out a common cold. This is more likely poisoning, or perhaps some other virus."

"Shut," Dustil managed weakly, "_up_."

He pushed himself to his feet again and tried to think of where he could go, or what he could do. But there was nowhere, and nothing. He thought about going to the far end of the corridor, but though it would be far away from the smell of vomit, he had a feeling he wasn't going to feel better anytime soon. And he was going to want water again.

In the end, he went just a few steps from the dispenser and lowered himself down onto the metal floor. He had been sleeping on the floor without caring much about it since the first few nights – it had been painfully uncomfortable at first, but he had surprised himself with the speed at which he'd gotten used to it. Now it was miserable again, hard and unforgiving, and he could feel the air from beneath the grates seeping upward, into his clothes. He shivered hard and hugged himself.

Several minutes later, he rolled onto his stomach and dry heaved. His body wanted to throw up again, but there was nothing left. He continued to heave anyway. He had no control over it.

"You can't have anything left to regurgitate," XR said conversationally. "What a pointless reflex."

Dustil curled into the fetal position, shaking, and prayed he'd fall asleep before the droid could say anything else.

Instead, he passed out.

He flickered in and out of consciousness – for how long, he didn't know. He moved very little. Once, he managed to haul himself back to the dispenser for more water, and then he slumped against it and slept again. He woke briefly again after that, but had no energy to do anything but wish that the piercing pain in his head would subside. He could not lie down; it seemed his brain would implode. The only position that afforded any relief was to sit up straight, with his back against the wall, his temple leaning against the dispenser. He slept in that position for a measureless time.

When he woke again, his eyes fluttered open. Everything was a haze. He could hear XR saying something, but the words were muddled, and so were the sounds of the ship around him – an ugly hum of compassionless sound, all machinery and no life. He had never known what it was to be sick. Not like this. Sick had always meant that he felt less than perfect and that he didn't feel like going to school. It had never meant that he literally could not get up off the floor.

He knew that he had to get up. He had to go about his duties, or there would be a malfunction, and like the Sith soldier had warned him, he would melt in the localized plasma burst. Maybe it had just been a threat, but it frightened him all the same, and he worked hard to muster the energy to stand. He had to stand. He had to drink something. He had to use the corroded fresher to relieve himself, before he humiliated himself completely – not that anyone but a droid would ever know it. By the time anybody else found him, he'd probably be dead.

That thought motivated him enough to get to his knees. He crawled to the fresher.

Whether he managed to use it, he couldn't remember. When he woke again, he was sprawled on the floor in front of it, and there was a pounding noise, like raining metal, all around his head. It hurt so much that Dustil moaned – but there was no sound. His throat was raw and dry.

"You there."

At the sound of an irritated male voice, Dustil felt a wave of relief so powerful that it sickened him. He knew it was the voice of a Sith, but he had to feel grateful for it. Someone had come down and found him. That was what mattered.

"You've been remiss in your duties."

Dustil lay at the Sith's feet and tried to answer, but his voice refused to obey.

"And you've made a disgusting mess. You'll have to clean it up, you realize. No one's going to wipe up after you."

Dustil knew he should have been furious, but he had no energy for it. He had barely enough willpower to roll onto his side and look dimly up at the man who had come down to the utility level to mock him. But he could not see his face. It was hidden behind a featureless visor. Whether the soldier was laughing at him or furious with him, he had no idea.

"Well, I'm not going to carry you out of here," said the soldier, after a moment. He sounded truly annoyed. "You'll have to wait where you are."

It wasn't as if he could have done anything else. Dustil remained where he was, grimacing as the Sith's boots pounded away again, sending the sound of ringing metal into his brain. He fought to stay awake, to find the will to stand, to listen for the sound of someone returning for him, but it was no use. After a short struggle, he gave a noiseless sob and went limp. Darkness shut out his senses.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

"So you've bothered to wake up."

The voice was snide and strange, cutting through the pounding haze in Dustil's head. At first, he wasn't sure what it was about the voice that bothered him so much, but the second time he heard it, he realized what the problem was.

"It's a good thing you were dying down there, boy. Anything less, and the Lieutenant Commander would have had you killed for being lax in your duties."

The voice was female.

Dustil's eyes fluttered open, and he found himself staring up into the unsympathetic face of a woman who was old enough to be his mother, but who had none of the necessary softness in her eyes. She looked at him without compassion, and lines cut deep grooves downward from the corners of her mouth, making her expression permanently cruel.

"It's a mystery that they've let you live this long," the woman continued, and she slapped a freeze compress across Dustil's forehead with stinging force. He winced at the unexpected pain, but it wasn't much, and the cold did reduce the pounding in his head. The woman didn't seem to care whether or not it did. She had already turned away, and was washing her hands with every appearance of disgust. "Why we're wasting fluids and nutrients on a little grunt like you," she complained, "I have no idea."

Neither did Dustil. It was clear to him that he was in a med bay, and that this woman was a medical tech. It was also clear that he must have been carried here by a Sith. It was hard to imagine that they cared enough about his life to bother hauling him into an analysis cot to keep him alive.

But apparently they did. Dustil eyed the soldier across the room, who was seemingly asleep in the furthest cot. He looked pretty young, but strong enough to carry him. Perhaps they had forced him to do it – not that it mattered. Dustil shut his eyes and decided to appreciate this moment for what it was. He was in a bed for the first time in what felt like months. Once upon a time, it would have seemed an uncomfortable cot with an unreasonably thin pillow; now it was sheer comfort. Even feeling like hell, he still felt better than he had in a long time.

"A few of us thought you might have crawled up another vent and died," the woman said, with a laugh that suggested she would have enjoyed it if that had been the truth. "You're lucky you didn't get trapped during the pump cycle the first time you tried it, but then, I suppose you're too stupid to know about that."

Dustil breathed out and ignored her. He had known about the pump cycle, but what was the point in talking back to a Sith? He wanted to stay in bed as long as he possibly could, and irritating the tech was probably the fastest way to get thrown out.

"It would have been a hassle to pull you out, though," said the woman, with another barking laugh. "No one would have bothered risking it until there was a stench."

Dustil sighed out quietly. She could say whatever she wanted. It wasn't any worse than the things he had already heard, and at least he was warm and resting.

"Only reason anyone bothered with you this time is that the levels were off in the generators, and believe you me, they didn't go down there to check on you." The woman snorted. "They went to punish you for negligence. Lucky for you, you were half-dead and dried up like a stone. Another hour or two without water, and that fever would have killed you. You're lucky it was that bad, or there's no telling what your punishment might have been. Very, very lucky."

_Yeah,_ thought Dustil bitterly. _I'm so lucky._

"You can't just go shirking your work around here. I'm not sure what sort of sugar-coated life you're used to, but on this ship, you do as you're told."

Dustil fought the urge to tell the stupid woman that he was actually used to doing what he was told, and that if she knew his mother, she'd know that.

"You're lucky you were told to do _anything_," the woman went on. "You know what happens to those they can't find a use for, don't you?" She made a sucking noise and clapped her hands. "Straight out the airlock they go. And if you ask me, they should have done the same thing with you."

Dustil's heart gave a cold beat. He opened his eyes.

"The same thing?" he asked. They were the first words he had spoken in a long time; perhaps it had been several days. He couldn't hear his own voice. It was nothing but a rasp of air in his dry throat.

"Something to say?" The woman shot a disdainful look over her shoulder.

Dustil reconsidered the question and shook his head. Surely she didn't mean what he had thought she meant. For one horrible second, he had seen a visual image of the little crying boy being shoved into the nothingness of space. But even the Sith couldn't be that cruel.

Could they?

"_Do the other young sentients share your familiarity with Omega-class capital ships?"_

XR's toneless voice cut into Dustil's thoughts. XR hadn't believed that the other children would have been put to work like Dustil. XR had seemed to think that the idea made no sense. And even though XR was a pain, he was a droid… and he was logical.

Maybe the other children _weren't _working, like him. But if they weren't… then where were they?

Dustil tried to clear his throat and moisten his mouth.

"Whatever you're about to say there," said the woman, who was now sorting through pressure injectors, "make sure it's important. If you're just going to waste my time, I have no issue with sedating you."

"There are…" Dustil had to cough and try again. "There are other prisoners," he managed finally. "Like me."

"Are there?" replied the woman, with a smirk in her voice. "Thankfully that's not true. There are no other prisoners who have made a nuisance of themselves."

"Are they working?" Dustil asked. Across the room, in the furthest bed, he saw the sleeping man shift. "Did they get put to work?"

"I heard you the first time," said the woman. "What makes you think I'm going to give you an answer?"

Dustil blinked. "Because… I asked?" he ventured.

The woman laughed aloud, and turned to look at him with real amusement in her face. "I heard you were an idiot," she said. "Not a rumor, I see."

Dustil clenched his teeth, but only for a moment. "I just wondered," he said. His voice sounded big in his head, which felt hollow. He reached up his hand to rub it, and found that he was just as filthy as before; caked grit rolled between his fingers and his damp temple. They hadn't bothered to clean him up. Not that he was surprised.

"Did you just wonder?" the woman taunted. "Well, since we all have plenty of time to indulge your wonderings, why don't you ask whatever you want?"

Dustil knew better than to take her up on the false offer. He fell silent again and glanced across the room at the young man in the far bed, who was now quite still again. Perhaps he was unconscious. Dustil wondered what was wrong with him, then realized he didn't really care.

"But since you're so curious," said the woman abruptly, "I might as well tell you that none of your little friends were given jobs to do. I imagine they're quite comfortable, in comparison with you. But that's what you get for crawling around in maintenance shafts and getting yourself caught, isn't it?"

Dustil frowned and took his hand down from his head. "They're still in holding cells?" he asked, somewhat relieved.

"Is that what I said?"

"You… said they were comfortable."

The woman turned back to her work with a disturbing chuckle. "I said I _imagine_ they're comfortable," she replied. "Not that I'd expect a halfwit like you to take my meaning."

"What's your meaning, then?" Dustil said, a little too hotly. "Are they imprisoned or not? What are you doing with them?"

"Me?" asked the woman, holding up a pressure injector to the light. It was full of clear liquid that might have been anything. Water, poison – Dustil didn't know. "They're no business of mine. And you'd better watch your tone, if you know what's good for you."

Dustil did know what was good for him, and he knew it was reckless to keep needling the tech, but he couldn't help it. "I made a deal," he said, his voice gaining strength. "They said if I worked, the others would be fine."

"Well, you stopped working, didn't you?" replied the woman with an unkind laugh. "I'd say the deal is off."

"But –" said Dustil anxiously, " – but where are they?"

"Worried, are you?"

"You – you said they weren't useful," Dustil went on, panic growing in his chest. "And I know there's no Jedi on the ship to test them for anything, so what –"

He fell silent. The woman had turned and fixed him with a very narrow stare.

"And just how do you know that there are no Jedi on the ship?" she asked quietly.

Dustil realized that he had said too much. He didn't want to give away that XR had given him the information, or XR might be removed from the maintenance level – and as obnoxious as he was, at least he was company.

"I…" Dustil hesitated. "Well, I haven't seen any."

The woman let out another guffaw of amusement. "You haven't _seen_ any?" she repeated condescendingly. "You haven't seen any? Is that so? And what – you think Jedi are going to go wandering through the pit of the ship, where _you_ can keep an eye on them?" She laughed again. "Idiot brat," she muttered. "You're stupider than I heard."

Dustil couldn't believe how easily he had tricked her. The Sith were the idiots, not him. And the Sith had made a bargain with him.

"I want to see them," he said in a low voice.

"See who, the Jedi?" The woman snorted. "Well, whatever you want, of course. I'll go and fetch them right now – "

"Not the Jedi." Dustil heard how cold his voice was. "The other prisoners. I want to see them. I want to see them _now_."

The woman turned, still holding the pressure injector up slightly. She advanced on Dustil, tapping it with her finger. "Did you just make a demand of me, boy?" she asked softly. "Is that what that was?"

Dustil swallowed, but held her gaze. "I had a deal," he said again. "It's only fair. I want to see them, or else I'm not working anymore."

The woman looked surprised, but only for a moment. She stepped up to his bedside and stabbed the injector against his arm. Dustil felt something pierce him, and then suddenly the room began to swim.

"You're not in much of a position to make ultimatums," said the woman. "I told you I'd sedate you if you couldn't keep your mouth shut."

Dustil's head fell to the side as his body began to course with drugs that turned his limbs to lead. He stared dully across the room as the med bay grew foggy before him, and he struggled to stay conscious, but it was no use; his eyelids were like duranium blast doors, dropping heavily and irresistibly down to cut off his vision. Just before he lost all sight, he saw that the young soldier in the furthest bed had his eyes open and was watching him somberly. He was the youngest Sith that Dustil had ever seen.

And then he saw nothing.

* * *

"…asking questions I didn't have clearance to answer, not that he deserved an answer…"

Dustil had never felt quite so groggy. He fought his way up from the depths of drugged sleep to hear snatches of the conversation that was being had over him.

"…said he hadn't seen any Jedi… wanted to know if the others had been put to work… something about a deal…"

There was a low, masculine laugh. An ugly laugh. Dustil recognized it at once, and it chilled him – that was the man who had killed Baden. The man who had struck him in the head with the blaster.

"So I sedated him, Lieutenant Commander… believed it was the right choice… in my opinion, you ought to get rid of him. He's more trouble than he's worth."

There was a pause. "Did I _ask_ for your opinion?"

"N-no."

"No _what?_"

"No, Lieutenant Commander Vortok."

"Can you imagine a situation in which I _would_ ask for your opinion?"

"No, Lieutenant Commander."

"Then perhaps you should shut your mouth before I sedate _you_."

Dustil laughed. He did it before he could stop himself, and to his relief, the sound that came out of him wasn't recognizable as a laugh – it was a toneless, garbled cry.

"Well well." Lieutenant Commander Vortok sounded bored. Dustil heard boot steps come nearer to his cot. "The weakling lives. Is he still feverish?"

"Yes, sir."

"Is he still in danger?"

"No, sir, not of dying, sir."

"Then get him out of that bed. I won't have him lounging around. What was the problem with him?"

"Malnutrition, sir, and dehydration. Also a bacterial infection caused by – "

"Pains that can be suffered without resorting to this kind of drama," said the Lieutenant Commander with disdain. "Another episode like this, and I empower you to get rid of him. I won't have time and resources repeatedly wasted on a hostage."

"My pleasure, sir."

Dustil fought to open his eyes. When he did, the world was bleary for several long seconds before Vortok's face came into focus, cold and savage, staring down at him.

"Get up."

Dustil struggled to lift his head. The room spun. He propped his elbows at his sides and pushed himself into a half-sitting position; it was excruciating, and he was weak, but he knew better than to ignore the command.

"I said _up_."

Dustil grimaced. With all his energy, he braced himself on his hands and slid his legs out of the bed. His bare feet hit the cold floor and he gasped.

"Don't make me say it again."

Summoning his will, Dustil clenched his muscles and rose to his feet. But he had been prone for so long that vertigo overwhelmed him and sent him staggering into the next bed. He doubled over and put his hands out to grab the opposite cot and break his fall.

"He's rank," said Vortok with disgust. "That stench. Has he wet himself?"

Dustil burned with humiliation. He probably had. He had no idea.

"I didn't put him in the fresher, sir. But if you want me to –"

"No, of course not. He's more than capable of keeping himself presentable, he's not an infant."

Dustil was on the verge of lashing out – of saying that he had no way of keeping himself in any kind of condition, the way they treated him. But it took all his energy just to right himself and stand on his feet before Vortok, whose eyes bored into him.

"You'll do something about that," said Vortok, raking a look of revulsion over Dustil. "Disrespectful little swine. But first I believe you wanted to take a walk. Is that right? A little walk to sate your curiosity?"

Dustil looked dully up at him. He didn't know what the man was talking about.

"You don't remember making demands? I understand you gave one of my soldiers an ultimatum."

Dustil licked his lips with a dry tongue. Now he remembered. "I asked to see the others," he rasped.

"And so you shall." Vortok smiled, then turned his head sharply and addressed the young soldier in the furthest bed. "Ensign Reymark."

"Yes, sir."

"Are you recovered?"

"Fully recovered, sir."

"Get up and escort the boy. He wants to see his friends. But I won't have him falling into walls and soiling the entire ship."

"Yes sir."

Behind Vortok, another man laughed. Dustil didn't recognize him, but he had a feeling that he was seeing the unmasked face of one of the soldiers who had brawled with Baden, before Vortok had murdered him. The man's eyes were bright and vacant and vicious.

"You too, Enor," said the lieutenant commander, jerking his chin at the soldier behind him. "Get his other side."

"Right away, sir."

Dustil was grabbed on one side by Enor, who locked his arm into a painful position. Ensign Reymark supported his other arm, and when Vortok turned, the two soldiers followed him out of the med bay, bringing Dustil between them. He heard the footsteps of the tech follow behind them, and knew he was surrounded. Not that he would have made any attempt to escape; it would have been ludicrous. He was weak and sick and drugged. It was a struggle just to walk, which he didn't have to do. Enor did a more than ample job of dragging him along. He was grateful that Ensign Reymark's grip was nowhere near as rough.

They turned corner after corner, and went up more than one level. Nothing was familiar to Dustil until they reached the detention corridor. He remembered it far too well – the lighting, the way the soldiers' boots sounded against the plasteel flooring… all of it. It was bizarre that a detention corridor on a Sith cruiser was so familiar to him. But it was.

"Look," said Enor, with an almost shrill laugh. "Up ahead, boy. There's that grate in the floor that saved your life." He laughed again. "Wait… no it didn't, did it? Shame about your officer friend who gave you the idea. Torture didn't sit too well with him."

Lieutenant Commander Vortok cast a look of gratified amusement over his shoulder, and his smile widened when he saw Dustil's face. Dustil wasn't sure of his own expression, but if it reflected what was in his mind, then Vortok was smiling at a look of pure hatred.

"And here we are." Vortok stopped dead in the corridor beside the grate. From his position, Dustil could see into both the cell on his left, where the boys had been kept, and the cell that was slightly ahead on the right, where he had seen the girls.

The women's cell was empty.

Deep in Dustil's gut, acid nervousness began to churn, like a horrible premonition. He stared through the flickering shield for a long moment to be sure his eyes weren't deceiving him, and then, when he was sure that no one was there, he turned his head to the left.

No one was in his old cell. Not Shaardan. Not the little boy.

"Where are they?" Dustil whispered.

Vortok crossed his arms and let out a sigh of satisfaction. "As you can see, they're all behaving themselves. Quiet and orderly."

The tech gave a low, appreciative laugh.

"Where _are they_." Dustil's breath trembled.

Enor adjusted his grip on Dustil's arm and squeezed it tighter than ever, hurting him. Out of the corner of his eye, Dustil could see that the man was grinning.

"Where do you think they are, Dustil?" asked Vortok quietly.

Dustil stared into the empty room and did not answer.

"We sent them out for a little walk," said Vortok, after a moment. "The outer hull needed inspecting."

Rage, quiet and ice cold, flooded Dustil's mind and blurred his eyes. But he would not cry. Not here. Not in front of them.

"But of course," Vortok continued, still softly, "we're operating on an unfortunate shortage of environmental suits these days, so I'm afraid the children had to go without."

The youngest girl couldn't have been seven. The youngest boy couldn't have been five. The scene played out in Dustil's head as though he had been forced to witness it. The tears there must have been. The screams. All mingled with the laughter of the Sith.

Were these men human?

"They weren't nearly as efficient in their task as you've been down in the sublevels," said Vortok. "Pity."

Dustil could not move his eyes from the room. He stood as if frozen.

Vortok glanced at him in something like irritation, then forced a condescending smile.

"No words, eh?" he said carelessly. "I suppose you're wondering what became of our bargain, are you? You've been working hard, you'll say. To protect the others. It isn't _fair_, you'll say."

Dustil made no response. He had left them. He had left them all, and saved himself, and they were dead. It was a failure beyond comprehension.

Vortok moved, unexpected and swift, and grabbed Dustil's shoulder, pushing him with a jerk so close to the forcefield that he felt the tingles of it a finger's width away from his face. The other two soldiers stepped back.

"Take a good look," the lieutenant commander said, his voice harsh now, and low. "It's time you got the truth through your naïve head. There _are _no bargains. There are fools who hope, and fools who believe that promises mean something in this world. You work, you _live_. That's the only bargain that matters. Weaklings have no right to hope. Weaklings have no _purpose_."

Tears rose in Dustil's eyes. He felt them there, stinging and hot. They didn't fall. He didn't try to stop them, but there weren't enough of them for weeping. This was nothing he could cry over. This was something for which he had not yet learned an emotion.

Still holding Dustil there, Vortok leaned in close to his profile.

"You want to cry? You want to feel guilty that you didn't save all those innocent little boys and girls?" He made a noise of disgust that filled Dustil's head. "You want to cry like a baby and make yourself so sick again that you spend the rest of your days wallowing in pools of your own vomit? Go ahead. You won't live long, and you'll prove to everyone just how weak you are. Frail and pathetic and naive, just like the rest of your failing Republic."

He pulled back and finally let go of Dustil's shoulder.

Dustil swayed back from the forcefield and nearly fell. A hand touched his left elbow and steadied him as Vortok gave a single, deep, disdainful laugh.

"Assuming anyone even cares enough to come down and wipe your drooling carcass off the floor. Next time we'll just clean the area with a plasma sweep. You can lie down like a dog and wait for it if that's all you're fit for."

Enor snickered, and under his breath, he gave a low, growling, dog's bark.

Vortok and the medical tech exploded with laughter. Enor joined them, shrieking with delight at his own believed cleverness. Their laughter echoed in the corridor, filling Dustil's ears, his brain, his chest. Vortok gave Dustil a shove down the corridor, back in the direction from which they had come, sending him stumbling into Ensign Reymark. Reymark righted him and held his shoulders firmly, steering him forward, back to the lift and back along the wide, sterile corridors that led to the med bay, while the others laughed.

Dustil couldn't look at any of them. He could barely even think. Dimly, he noticed that the hands on his shoulders, while firm, were not in any way cruel. If he closed his eyes and wished hard enough, he could almost pretend the hands were his father's, guiding him out of this place, this nightmare.

He wouldn't cry.

"Let him use the fresher, for everyone's sake," Vortok was saying to the tech, behind him. "See to it that he has the proper nutrients to prevent this happening again. Then Ensign, you will make certain that he returns to the maintenance level without incident."

"Yes, sir." Reymark's voice was rather quiet.

In the med bay, Dustil stumbled into the fresher. He could not enjoy the water that pulsed down onto his skin. He washed himself mechanically, keeping his mind as blank as possible, and he rinsed his clothing without much thought. He probably wouldn't have another chance to get them half-clean for a long time.

He dressed in his dripping clothes and was made to stand where he was until the medical technician was satisfied that he wasn't going to leave a trail of water on his way through the ship. When he stepped into the med bay again, Ensign Reymark was waiting for him, and for the first time, Dustil looked right into his face and felt a stab of bitter disappointment. How he could have imagined this soldier's hands to be like his father's, he did not know. Reymark was barely older than he was, still lanky with youth. In his eyes there was no steadying comfort. Only uncertainty.

"I'll take him," said Reymark.

Dustil stuck his feet into his shoes and allowed the ensign to lead him back down to the maintenance level without a word. Reymark lingered in the sublevel doorway for a moment as Dustil trudged ahead of him, back into the darkness of humming machinery and the faint smell of vomit.

It was only when he was alone again that it occurred to Dustil that, through all the mockery, Reymark had never laughed.

He wasn't sure why he knelt on the grated floor. There was a weight on his shoulders – he had heard of such things in books and vids, but he had never known how real it could feel. It was as though he was being pressed down beneath the force of some invisible burden, and he simply could not stand.

"It has been nearly a week. I assumed you were dead."

Dustil didn't look up at XR. He stared at the floor and realized momentarily that something was shining on the grates. He felt his face with half-numb fingers and realized that it was wet. He didn't remember beginning to cry, and he wasn't sure why he was crying. He wasn't hurt. He felt no pain.

He felt nothing.

When he could stand, he did so, and he went to the first small maintenance chamber. Lifelessly, he checked the levels and entered them. And then again. And again.

When he had completed his tasks, he lay down on his side and stretched out his arm to cushion his head, staring at nothing.

"No one is coming."

The words slipped from his mouth as though someone else was saying them, and when he heard them, he finally knew that they were true.

No one was coming to save him. There would be no rescue. No Republic. No father, blasting through the doors with a fleet behind him. No one knew where he was. This was all there would be.

Dustil lay on the floor and waited to feel a wave of hopelessness, but it didn't come. There was nothing at all. No fear, no fury. Just the shivering of his damp body on the floor and the rhythm of his breath, which he could hear pulsing in and out, keeping time with the humming of the generators around him. It was all he had. Just life.

It wasn't much of a life. He knew that. But maybe the point was to cling to life for its own sake. It was the only thing he had here that belonged to him, and he wanted to keep it. Just another day of breathing.

It was more than any of the others had left.

Whether XR left him alone because he had no interest in him, or because he somehow knew that Dustil was beyond the reach of insult, he did not know. But the droid stayed back in a dark corner and said not one more word.

Dustil was too empty to feel grateful. He slipped into dark sleep, and dreamed of faces he had only barely known, floating silently in endless blackness.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

Time passed, and Dustil no longer made attempts to measure it. He worked when he was awake, and slept when he wasn't working. There was little else in his mind. Thoughts of Telos grew dimmer every time he woke, because he refused to entertain them; they were too painful. Once, he dreamed of Vrosh, but he could not remember the dream, and he woke so angry that he slammed everything he touched for the rest of the day. Some people had gotten away. And though he knew he would not have changed his decision in the schoolyard, it infuriated him that he alone was left on this ship to suffer.

Mostly, though, he felt quiet. It was useless to be angry. It changed nothing.

Even XR stayed quiet, watching him.

"You can talk, you know," Dustil murmured, when the silence had stretched for what seemed like a lifetime.

XR stayed where he was, but his head unit turned in Dustil's direction. "Then I am genuinely curious," he said.

"What about?"

"You are what humans call miserable."

Dustil entered a figure into the commpanel. His fingers were much cleaner than they had been before the incident upstairs. "I guess."

"But the Sith would kill you if you complained."

"Probably."

XR made a humming noise. "Why not let them kill you, if you are miserable?"

Dustil sighed and left the small room he was in. He passed XR on his way down the corridor and patted his head unit.

"That is not an answer," said XR stiffly. "It is perhaps too difficult a philosophical question for you to digest. Is this what it comes to? You would submit to being kept alive, in misery, for no purpose other than to work for people you despise?"

Dustil began to check the second set of levels. "Yeah."

"Humans are extraordinary."

Dustil glanced over his shoulder. "Was that a compliment?"

XR's eye panels flashed. "No. I simply fail to understand how a being can weep with hatred, yet even an emotion of that magnitude can be sacrificed to staying conscious."

"You're losing me."

XR sighed. "In simple terms," he said, with slow exaggeration, "it would seem that everything that makes you human can be put aside, if necessary to ensure survival."

Dustil shrugged. "Pretty much," he said.

"I find that strange."

"Yeah?" Dustil finished keying in the second levels. "Me too."

"Because survival is nothing more than consciousness. And it's not as though I value human emotion in the slightest, but it seems that if a human should forsake it entirely, then humanity is void. Therefore, why not die?"

"I don't know, droid," said Dustil sarcastically, turning around. "Why not die? You don't have feelings either, do you? Let's unscrew your head."

XR rolled out of arm's reach as Dustil returned to the corridor. "You are misunderstanding my question," he said, in a tone of irritation. "I simply wish to know what your consciousness is worth, devoid of human feeling."

Dustil stopped in the third small maintenance room and dropped his face into his hands. He stood there for a moment, torn between exasperation and curiosity. The droid had a point.

"I guess it's worth about as much as yours," Dustil said finally, raising his head. "I'm just a brain on wheels. If that's not enough, then maybe we should both get scrapped."

XR released a dry laugh. "The comparison of your brain to my central cluster is, I'm sure you realize, ludicrous. One might as easily compare a speeder to a warship."

"I take it I'm the speeder."

"My consciousness is invaluable to the highest levels of the Sith fleet."

"Oh yeah, Darth Revan is beating down the door looking for you."

"That's an interesting droid."

Dustil jerked. The voice that had interrupted their conversation was familiar – even friendly – but he couldn't place it. XR fell silent, and Dustil squared his shoulders and came out of the tiny maintenance chamber to see why the hell any Sith would come down to the sublevels. His work had been beyond reproach since he had come back down here. He wasn't ill in the slightest. He wasn't due for a visit, and he damn well didn't want one.

The sight of Ensign Reymark standing at the end of the corridor, framed by the metal door, was so startling that Dustil couldn't think of a word to say. He simply stared.

Ensign Reymark spoke first.

"How're you feeling?"

The question was outlandish. Dustil barely held back a laugh. How was he feeling?

"Just great," he said after a moment, not quite keeping the sarcasm out of his voice. "Thanks for asking. Glad you could stop by."

Reymark raised an eyebrow, but didn't reprimand him. Still, Dustil wondered if he was going to get reported and thrown out of the ship.

"Did you need something?" he asked abruptly.

"No." Reymark stepped down into the maintenance corridor and held something out. A short, fat cylinder that gleamed in the dim light. "Nutrient supplement," he explained. "To keep you from getting ill again."

Dustil looked at the cylinder, nonplussed.

"You'd better take it," said Reymark, stepping forward.

Dustil was surprised again by how young the man was. He couldn't have been two years his senior. Maybe not even that.

He took the supplement and looked at it.

"They make you less queasy if you administer them to the thigh," said Reymark conversationally. "It's pretty condensed, so you're going to feel a little sick, but it wears off after ten minutes or so."

"How'd you get stuck bringing it down here?"

Reymark laughed a little and scratched his head. "Oh, you know. I volunteered. Everyone thought I was sucking up – of course, you _have_ to, if you want to advance. You do whatever you have to do to make an impression on the officers, so everyone assumed I took a crap job to earn a few points." He shrugged. "Sure, some of the other guys will give me a hard time for it. But how is that really different from any other day here? I'm Jor, by the way."

Jor Reymark held out his hand.

Dustil narrowed his eyes at the offered hand, and didn't take it. He slid the cylinder into his pocket, then crossed his arms and waited, while Jor looked around.

"It's nice and quiet down here," said Jor, after a minute.

Dustil stared at him. "Quiet?" he repeated. "You can't hear all that hissing and beeping?" In truth, he had grown used to the sounds of the machinery. But quiet… no.

"Well it beats listening to a bunch of arrogant soldiers bragging all day," said Jor, with a laugh. "You know?"

Dustil laughed too, but it wasn't out of humor. The soldier before him was too good to be true. The conversation was too real, too easy to understand, too compassionate. It was a trap. "Oh _right_," he said bitterly.

Jor glanced at him. "Sorry?"

"What, do you think I'm stupid? Are you trying to trick me, saying things like that? You want me to agree with you so you can run upstairs and get me killed? Forget it. Find someone else to mess with. I'm through being tricked."

Jor seemed somewhat disappointed, but mostly unfazed. He looked down at his hands and smiled wryly. "Well," he said. "I guess that's my cue to leave."

Dustil didn't answer. He stood right where he was, arms crossed, until Ensign Jor Reymark had turned and walked out of the maintenance level, and then he turned to XR, livid.

"What the hell?" he burst out. "Do I look that dumb?"

XR whirred for a moment. "I will consider that a rhetorical question," he said. "For the sake of your pride."

Dustil muttered something he would have been grounded for, at home, then unbuttoned his trousers and pushed them down far enough to administer the nutrients to himself. He depressed the plunger into his thigh, and tried not to remember how he had done something similar for Bellamy Beal, not too long ago. That was another life. It no longer existed.

He was queasy within a minute, and had to sit down.

"This is how they keep you alive?" he muttered. "Real nice."

"I have had similar experiences while being _repaired_ by an ill-qualified boor," said XR, with something like actual sympathy. "Like the one who just visited you."

"What, that soldier?"

"Ensign Reymark." XR pronounced the name with utter condescension. "A technician, or so he would call himself. His attempts to restore my higher functions are what resulted in the damage to my vocabulator."

Dustil couldn't help a snort. "Your vocabulator seems to be working just fine."

"That is because you do not speak Bothan," said XR with a sigh. "If you did, I am afraid we would be at an impasse."

"That'd be a real shame, XR."

"Yes, I think so."

Dustil glanced at the droid and for the first time in a long time, he grinned. "You know," he said, "you're not so bad."

"I would return the compliment if I could do so honestly."

Dustil laughed aloud.

* * *

Two days later, he found himself deep in another conversation with the droid, who had been bothering him more and more with questions about human nature. Dustil didn't mind. He answered questions when he could, asked some when they came to him, and time passed more quickly than it had in the recent past.

"We were talking about tactics once," Dustil said one afternoon. Or at least, he thought it might be afternoon. He could never tell. "You never finished what you were telling me."

His duties were done, and he was sitting against the wall, toying with the idea of eating something out of the dispenser. The nutrient supplement must have been wearing off, because he was feeling hungry, and more than that, he missed chewing. Not that anything out of the dispensers really needed to be chewed.

"I recall the conversation," said XR. "I had called your father a simpleton, and –"

"We can skip that part," said Dustil darkly. He had done well in blocking out his father's face in his mind for the past few days, and he wanted to continue that way. He couldn't help his dreams at night, but when he was awake, it was better not to dwell on any of it. Not his parents, not Telos, not the dead prisoners – nothing at all. Keeping up conversations, he had found, was key to keeping himself in line. "Why isn't it a weakness that the Sith don't have enough soldiers?"

"The answer is twofold," said XR. "It may be difficult for you to comprehend."

"Yeah, well. There's no one smarter around here for you to talk to."

"Well grasped," said XR, sounding pleased. "As a matter of purely logistic consideration: if a hundred ships are required to maintain a position in battle, and an estimated fifty of those ships will be decimated in the battle, it is better that fewer resources be lost on the ships."

Dustil tilted his head. "Yeah…" he began. "But if the ships aren't properly crewed, then wouldn't that increase the chance of fatal errors and make them less effective on the whole in battle?"

XR's head unit turned sharply toward him in something like surprise.

"What?" said Dustil. "I told you I studied schematics. I studied some tactics stuff too, you know. Just for fun."

"Then you must know that a truly conservative prognoses of any given encounter should account for roughly half the ships in a fleet being lost, while attempting to ensure that the remaining forces will be sufficient to the needs of the engagement. Therefore, if the simple truth of the odds indicates the loss of half of one's ships, it is better to send them in to be destroyed in the most efficient manner possible."

"You're saying if the ships are going to go down anyway, better let them go down with less officers?"

"Precisely."

"But the ships themselves are valuable resources, right?"

"Under normal circumstances, you would be correct."

"Normal circumstances?"

But XR went on as if he hadn't heard. "Of course, though one must calculate for half of the ships being lost, the goal is to ensure that those ships are _not _lost. If one wins, yet loses the estimated ships, then one has merely fulfilled a negative scenario. Even so, the loss is acceptable, given the odds and ultimate goals of war."

"I don't buy it. I think there's a better way to fight."

"So does the Republic. Note that they are losing."

"They're _not_ losing."

XR was silent for a moment. "The other half of my explanation comes down to something less than a hard fact. The Sith are commanded by a mind far superior to any in the Republic force. Even half-crewed ships, led by our Commander, are positioned in a way that no Republic Admiral has been able to understand or defeat."

"So without Revan, you're saying the Sith would lose?"

"Until such an eventuality as the Commander's demise, there is no way to formulate an accurate prognosis. For now, between the Commander's unrivaled genius and an unlimited supply of forces, what hope does the Republic really have, even if their ships are fully crewed and competent? Until the Republic puts forward a leader to rival ours, they will continue to fall. And every time they lose a ship, they lose thousands of those experienced soldiers you put so much faith in. So in actuality, who is losing more?"

Dustil didn't answer. He wrapped his arms around his knees and leaned his head back against the wall.

"I told you it would be difficult for you to comprehend."

"No, I get it. I just…" He shook his head. "The Sith aren't human."

"Not all of them, no."

"That's… not what I mean." Dustil sighed out, long and weary. "You don't send soldiers into a battle to die."

"On the contrary –"

"No, listen. If you have any kind of… feeling… then you have to hope those soldiers are coming back, right?"

XR's eyepanels shuttered once, in apparent confusion.

"But if you send in fifty ships assuming that they're all going to get annihilated, then you're not even thinking about your soldiers as people. You're just… they're just… they're no better than ships. They're not even important."

XR seemed to have nothing to say to this.

"I don't know," said Dustil finally. "There's a better way to fight."

"I'm with you."

Dustil's head snapped toward the doorway, and the sound of Jor Reymark's voice. The guy was always interrupting something that Dustil didn't want him to hear, and he had caught Dustil sitting around. He pushed himself to his feet and stood at the defensive.

"I'm done with my work," he said sharply. "Everything's finished, you can check."

"I didn't come to monitor you," said Jor, who was carrying something bigger than a cylinder this time. It smelled… really good.

Dustil squinted at the plate. Jor had brought actual food.

"I thought this might be a nice change," he said with a shrug. "I used to get sick of the nutrients back on Bregon IV, when we were waiting for rations. Sometimes you just want to chew something."

Dustil eyed the meal hungrily, then turned wary eyes on Jor's face. "What's this, poisoned or something?" he demanded.

Jor laughed. The sound was not unkind. "You don't have to eat it if you don't want to," he said, and he set the plate on the ground. Beside it, he laid the pressure injector. "But you'd better use the nutrients. Even if you do eat this, one meal isn't going to get you through half a week."

Dustil made no answer. He took up the same position as before, his arms crossed, watching and waiting. In contrast, Jor looked very much at ease. He peered past Dustil and lifted a hand toward XR.

"I remember you," he said.

"Likewise," said XR grimly.

"Yeah… sorry I couldn't be more help. I'm not familiar with your model."

"You don't say," said XR, the words dripping with derision.

"What did I erase again? Bith? Selkath?"

XR made a noise of contempt and did not deign to answer.

Dustil glanced back at the droid, and then at Jor. "Bothan," he said.

Jor grimaced. "Oh, right… that's not good. Maybe we'll be able to get you fixed up on Andros."

"A planet not exactly noted for its technical proficiency," said XR with disdain. "Is our course set for Andros?"

"Well, eventually. Yep." Jor nodded.

"Then I will assume the worst for my programming," said XR, and he rolled away from them, toward the dispensers at the far end of the corridor.

Jor watched him go, smiling a little. "So you've got some company down here?"

Dustil was tempted to say that continual insults didn't exactly equal company, but he wasn't about to badmouth XR to a Sith. XR, though perhaps not a friend, had never hit him with a blaster or marched him down a detention corridor.

It occurred to him that Jor had so far done nothing to deserve his suspicion, but Dustil pushed the thought aside. He was wearing the uniform. That was enough to make him an enemy.

"Mind if I sit down a minute?"

Dustil had no idea what to say. It didn't seem he had much choice. The soldier before him might have been a boy, but he was a Sith, and he held the power here. Dustil could hardly tell him no.

"Fine."

Jor settled himself down on the grated floor and leaned back against the wall. "Well, I'll give you that it's not the most comfortable floor in the world," he said. "And here I was thinking the bunks were bad."

Dustil stood where he was and just watched him. It wasn't long before Jor looked mildly uncomfortable, and whether the discomfort was physical, or something else, Dustil couldn't be sure. But the ensign got to his feet fairly quickly, and stuck his hands in his pockets.

"I should be getting back on duty," he said. "See you."

Dustil lifted his chin slightly in acknowledgement, but said nothing more, and he waited until Jor had been gone for several minutes before allowing himself to investigate the plate.

* * *

Jor continued to come regularly down to the maintenance level. Every second or third day he appeared – always with real food, in addition to the injector, and eventually Dustil was pretty sure that it was never going to be poisoned, though he wasn't sure of much else. They said little to each other, and Dustil always made a point of standing in the middle of the corridor, immovable, until Jor left him alone.

Still, he couldn't help wishing that he could believe that Jor was as normal as he seemed. It would have been nice to have a person to talk to. It had been a long time. Several months even, maybe. He tried to count back once, to see if he could measure, but it was more or less impossible.

"Hey, XR?" he asked one afternoon. "Do you know how long it's been since this ship went to Telos?"

"Just under eight standard months."

Eight _months_. Dustil put a hand to his head and laughed.

"Is that amusing?" XR asked.

"It's… I'm…" Dustil smiled a little. "I'm fourteen," he said. "And a half."

He hadn't given it a moment's thought.

"Fourteen and a half standard years," XR repeated, and he shook his head unit. "To think of the superior programming that could be installed in such a length of time. Humans gather information in such a protracted manner. It must be quite frustrating to have been alive so long, and know so little."

Dustil snickered and gave XR a thump. "Yeah," he said. "It really gets to me. Sometimes I stay up nights."

"You might as well," XR replied haughtily. "You babble enough in your sleep."

Dustil was surprised. "Do I?"

"It is thoroughly irritating."

"Yeah? What do I say?"

"Suffice to say that you are even more nonsensical asleep than you are awake." XR made an impatient noise. "If that is possible."

"I do the same thing," said a voice in the door. "So they tell me."

Dustil no longer jerked with surprise when Jor appeared. It had been happening now for much too long. He assumed his position in the middle of the corridor and crossed his arms, more out of habit now than out of defiance. The only surprise was that, for the first time since his first visit, Jor hadn't brought a plate. Dustil was almost disappointed, until he realized what the ensign was carrying.

"I can't carry too much down here," Jor said apologetically, holding out the offering. "I don't want questions. And I would have brought one sooner, but I'm off duty this time, so… Here."

Dustil hadn't slept under a blanket since he had spent two weeks in the med bay. He took it from Jor and stared at it, torn between gratitude and a strange, sick sadness. There had been a time when a blanket would have meant nothing except one more thing he had to clean up in his room. Now it was…

He wouldn't cry, damn it.

Dustil kept his eyes on the blanket until he had fully composed himself, and then he said something that he had not said in a very long time.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Dustil looked up to find that Jor was looking kindly at him. As usual. And somehow, this time, he believed it. He set the blanket on the ground and, with another nod of thanks, he took the pressure injector that Jor had pulled from his utility belt.

"You uh… you talk in your sleep?"

Jor looked surprised for a moment – Dustil had never struck up a conversation with him – and then he grinned.

"I hear it's pretty bad," he said. "They say I wake everyone up except myself. Someone tried to smother me for it once."

Dustil couldn't help a laugh. "Yeah, that sounds about right."

For a moment, the two boys stood awkwardly, somewhere between suspicion and friendliness, and then Dustil made a decision. He was fourteen and a half, and he wanted to have a conversation with a living creature.

"Have a seat." He gestured to the floor. It wasn't much, but it had become his over the months, and he could invite someone into the space if he wanted to. The fact that he had never done it before was not lost on Jor, who looked honestly pleased as he hunkered down onto the grate and stretched out his legs.

"Andros in a couple weeks," Jor said. "We're going in to support the occupation. It'll be good to get off the ship."

"If they _let_ me off," said Dustil. "What's Andros like, anyway?"

Jor shrugged. "Don't know. Never been."

"Yeah? Where are you from?"

Jor looked down and picked at something invisible on his trouser leg. "You, uh… ever heard of Dereygon?"

Dustil had, but he couldn't quite place it. He frowned and tried to remember. "Isn't it… wait. I think we studied it."

"You studied it?" Jor repeated, his eyebrows raised.

"Yeah… wasn't it something about the Mandalorian Wars?"

Jor's eyes flashed, and he let out a sound that was half-laugh, half anger. "Something about them," he said bitterly. "Yeah."

Dustil knew he had said exactly the wrong thing. "I wasn't much good at history," he said. "I know I should remember, but…"

"No, it's fine." Jor seemed to shake off whatever had gripped him, and he gave Dustil a gentler look. "It's just strange. I never thought of anyone studying what happened, but I guess… well, I don't have to explain. You know exactly what it's like. They'll be studying Telos in a couple years, kids on other planets. They'll be reading about it in school, trying to remember the date it got ripped to shreds, but they'll forget. And you'll wonder how anyone could possibly forget." His voice had grown quieter, and passionate, and he was looking away now, focused on something internal.

Dustil felt a pang somewhere dark and deep, to hear what had happened to his home referred to so casually; he understood Jor's bitter laugh now. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean –"

"Hey, no, it's no big secret." Jor shook his head. "Half the time I'm talking in my sleep, this is what I'm talking about. All the ensigns could probably ace a test on the destruction of Dereygon, after bunking with me for a year."

"You've been with the Sith for a year?"

Jor nodded. "Two, actually. Came in as a recruit, slaved for a year, got bumped to ensign. Doesn't sound like much, but it's a commission. Not much of a commission either, maybe, but you know. You take what you can get."

Dustil nodded. He did know something about that. "How old are you, then?"

"I'll be seventeen. You?"

"I'll be fifteen."

Jor smiled. "Well, we got picked up by the Sith at the same age, then, didn't we? There's one thing we have in common. And our planets were destroyed. There's two."

Dustil wanted to be sure he was hearing things right. "You were picked up by the Sith?" he asked. "Against your will?"

Jor shifted and looked away again. "Depends on what you mean," he said. "Dereygon wasn't exactly livable. The Mandalorians crushed it. Came into the Outer Rim and destroyed it – and for what?" His voice grew bitter again. "We had nothing to begin with. Nothing they could want. They just wanted to provoke the Republic into fighting, and for that, they killed almost all of us. Nearly everyone I knew – my family –"

There was a long, terrible silence. Dustil kept his eyes away from Jor. He hadn't realized what kind of conversation it was going to be, and he had spoken to no one about Telos. He wasn't sure he could.

"And just when we were hanging on by a thread, you know who saved us. You studied, you know the name."

Dustil did. "Revan," he said, his voice dry.

"Revan." Jor's voice was almost reverent. "And under Revan's command, the Mandalorians were more than removed from Dereygon. They were destroyed, the way we'd been destroyed. They were left with nothing, the way they'd left us with nothing. They were slaughtered and scattered, and they lost everything."

There was vengeance in Jor's voice that Dustil could appreciate. He would have felt the same way if someone had come to tear the Sith apart for what they had done to Telos.

And yet, here he was, listening to the confession of a Sith.

"And then Revan left." Jor laughed sharply. "And we still had nothing. We were still a broken planet. And without the Republic occupation to support us, we didn't have any resources. There was a time in my life when I thought starvation was something I would never know anything about – no, not even that. There was a time in my life when starvation didn't even cross my mind."

Dustil was watching him now. He knew exactly what he meant.

"But I starved." Jor lifted his shoulders, which suddenly looked lankier than usual. "I found out what that was. I found out…" He shook his head. "Everything you've been finding out," he said nodding to Dustil. "And after a while, I found out that you can't change back. That person I was before the Mandalorians came – that's another person. I don't even know him."

Dustil dropped his eyes to the grated floor.

"When the Sith invaded Dereygon a few years later, and the destruction started again, I couldn't… I _couldn't_." Jor lifted a hand from the floor and rubbed his temples. "Not again. I was barely scraping my life together when they showed up, and to see it getting blown to pieces all over again…" He let out an unhappy laugh. "I didn't plan to stick around. At first I tried to get off the planet, but I had no money and we were quarantined. I was working in a manufacturing plant as a technician, making next to nothing – the plants were taking anyone they could get with any expertise at all, not caring how young we were or anything like that. And one day, the Sith raided the plant for supplies. Plenty of the others resisted and got killed, but not me. I wasn't about to die. I survived the Mandalorians, and I'll survive the Sith. I told them I had technical skills and asked them if they were accepting recruits. And I'm alive."

Dustil waited through a lengthy silence until he felt the moment for a reply.

"So you're all right with being a Sith?"

Jor glanced briefly at him, as though making an assessment, and then he nodded – but slowly. "Revan saved my people once," he said. "And whatever this war is, I have to believe that Revan…" He stopped. "This can all turn around," he said, with more conviction. "And in the meantime, what choice do I have?"

Dustil tried to beat down his mother's voice.

_"Come on, Mom – I didn't have a choice, I _had _to."_

_ "Dustil Onasi, I never want to hear those words from you again. You always have a choice. Always. And the harder the choice is, the more important it is to make the right one."_

"Anyway," said Jor, with sudden, forced lightness, "sorry to throw all that out there. It's a lot, I know, and we all have our own crap to deal with. You don't need any of mine."

"No, it's all right." Dustil shook the echoes out of his head and met Jor's eyes. "I'm glad you told me."

"Yeah?" Jor looked unsure, and then relief swept his features, and he bowed his head. "Thanks."

Dustil had a feeling it was the first time Jor had been able to tell the whole story to anyone.

It was a long while before Jor left. The two of them made less morbid conversation for the better part of a few hours, until Jor decided that it wouldn't be prudent to stick around much longer. But he promised to come back the next time he had a few hours to himself, and though Dustil knew better than to put his faith in promises, he had a feeling Jor meant to keep his.

That night, Dustil went to sleep cocooned in a blanket, and he appreciated it, spare as it was, for every inch of warmth it gave him. Maybe it wasn't a bed. And maybe it wasn't friendship.

But it wasn't nothing.


	6. Chapter 6

6.

"You think they'll let me off this ship, when we land?"

"I don't expect so."

Dustil shot a glare at XR. "Anyone ever tell you you're a real downer?"

"No. But then, until making your acquaintance, I had never been accosted by slang."

"Well get used to it, because if they don't let me out of here, then there's more where that came from."

"Then I shall hope for your immediate removal."

"Yeah, whatever." Dustil gave XR a light knock on the side as he passed him. "You'd miss me, droid. Admit it."

"Delude yourself if it entertains you."

"Oh, it does." Dustil went to work on the last levels of the afternoon, fairly sure that he could expect Jor in the near future, and wanting to have his work done so that he could idle a bit. It was nice to have something to look forward to again.

He was constantly surprised by how little it took, anymore, to make him happy.

"So, XR."

XR let out a rather gusty mechanical sigh.

"You never told me what it is you really _do_."

"How astute you are. Truly, your continued flashes of keenness are astounding."

"And here I thought your vocabulator was broken." Dustil shot a grin over his shoulder at XR's flashing eye panels. "Come on, can't you tell me what your higher functions are?"

"Why don't you take a guess?"

"You think I could guess?"

"No." XR paused. "But I would be amused by the fumbling attempt."

"Well, anything for you." Dustil finished keying in the levels in record time, swung around, and launched back into the corridor with a jump that made the grated floor ring when he landed.

"What high spirits you are in," said XR, without pleasure. "I don't suppose this burst of energy has anything to do with the anticipated arrival of your subversive companion."

"Subversive?"

"Rebellious," said XR. "Secretly, perhaps, but the Sith have ways of rooting out those who deride them in secret."

"Deride."

"In_sult_," said XR. "Fourteen and a half standard years, and such a limited grasp of language. I would ask to be scrapped."

"What was that?" came Jor's voice from the door. "He's asking to be scrapped?"

"I'm pretty sure that's what he said, yeah," Dustil replied, grinning at the droid, who looked like his head unit was about to pop off in fury.

"Well, I might not be able to repair him, but I'm pretty sure I could handle a scrap job," said Jor, setting the plate on the floor with the nutrient supplement and striding toward Dustil and XR. "We could start with his wheels. Then he couldn't get away."

Dustil snorted with laughter.

"Insolent," hissed XR. "Idiots."

"Easy there, scrappy," said Jor, smiling. "We'll be on Andros in two days, and I bet we could find a buyer for you."

"If you _dare_ –" XR began, sputtering. "The _wrath_ –"

"Hey, okay, easy." Dustil laid a hand on XR. "You have nothing to worry about. I wouldn't sell you."

"Unless the price was right," added Jor, and the two of them were laughing again.

It was something Dustil appreciated now as much as the food and the blanket and the companionship. Laughter. Jokes had been far away from his mind for a very long time.

"So what'll you do on Andros?" Dustil asked, as they settled down at the other end of the corridor from XR, who seemed to want to be left to his hissing and scathing remarks.

"Patrols in the city." Jor shrugged. "Basic training stuff. Grunt work. Hit the cantinas, on leave. Find a girl I can afford."

Dustil's eyebrows shot up. He tried to bring them down, but they were beyond his control.

Jor laughed. "Shock you there? Sorry. Maybe in a couple years you'll know what I mean."

"Hey, I know what you mean," Dustil said quickly. "I just… never heard it put like that."

"Yeah, well. You know, none of the women on board are very…" Jor whistled a little. "No. And we never stay in one place long enough for me to meet a girl on my own terms." He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms behind his head. "So when we're planetside, I try to meet one on _her _terms."

"Right, yeah," said Dustil, who had managed to bring his face back into its usual expression. "Makes sense."

It didn't.

"Look, I hope they bump you up," said Jor. "It'd be great if we drew the same leave. A couple of the guys were here when they were stationed on other ships, when the occupation started, and they know the good cantinas. Anyway, I'd be surprised if they make you stay on the ship."

Dustil's head was swimming. "Bump me up?" he repeated, feeling slightly cold. "To what?"

"Recruit," said Jor. "They wouldn't have kept you around this long if they weren't going to extend the offer."

Dustil could not swallow. "Extend the offer?"

"And when they do, a word of advice. Don't say no." Jor laughed. "They don't like that."

Dustil couldn't feel his face. He had no idea what it was doing, but it must have contorted, because when Jor glanced at him, his expression changed.

"Hey, Dustil… come on. It's not so bad."

Not so bad. Dustil realized he was gripping the grated floor with painful fingertips. "Oh yeah?" he asked in a rasp. "What's so good about it?"

Jor was quiet for a while. "You know," he finally said, "we're not too different, you and me. I'm just wearing a uniform. And I know how you feel about that, because I felt it too. But it does make things easier."

Dustil felt like the air had gone out of his lungs and he couldn't get it back. Was that his only option now? Would they ask him to join them, and would he have to say yes?

Did he really have a choice?

"I'm not down here trying to recruit you. Believe me." Jor stretched his legs and let out a long breath. "That's really not my job, and you should do what you want. But Dustil… they didn't kill you. That's pretty much their way of saying you're worth keeping around. So I wouldn't be surprised. You might want to prepare for it." He looked around for a moment, then elbowed Dustil lightly. "Getting yourself deathly ill isn't the only way to get out of this engine room hell hole."

"Hell hole?" Dustil managed a rough laugh. "I thought you said it was nice and quiet."

"That was before your droid started interrupting our conversations."

The two of them laughed together again, but this time, Dustil's heart was not entirely in it, and after Jor had gone, he sat on the floor for a long while, not eating, not moving, just knitting his eyebrows together in concentrated thought.

"I suppose next time your friend comes to visit, he'll bring an extra uniform along," said XR cuttingly from the other end of the corridor. "Won't that look fetching."

Dustil bristled on instinct. "As if I'd put it on," he retorted.

"Oh _wouldn't_ you."

Dustil turned away from XR, because he couldn't answer the question. Not honestly. In his mind's eye, he could see his father's face, and suddenly the fact that he had entertained the thought of putting on a Sith uniform, even for half a second, made him want to die.

Then again, his father wasn't here.

Dustil frowned deeply again and stared ahead, working through the dilemma. He knew very few things for sure, but he did know that he wanted to stay alive, and he did know that he wanted to get outside when they landed. Only if he could get outside, on a planet, was there any hope of escape.

The idea startled him. It had been a long while since he had seriously entertained the idea of escape.

"I could get out, if I put on that uniform," he said, in a low voice.

"Out of the ship? Yes, if that is your goal."

"No," said Dustil, his heart thumping. "_Out_."

"Andros is under occupation," XR replied, in a strange, thin, mechanical voice that Dustil had not heard from the droid before. "I believe there has been a quarantine imposed. Escape would be nearly impossible."

"But not totally impossible," said Dustil. "Right?"

XR was silent for a long moment, and when he spoke, the hair rose on Dustil's arms.

"I am not in the habit of assisting defectors," he said coolly, in a mechanical monotone that was truly frightening. "Nor am I in the habit of sitting idly by while the Sith are insulted by ensigns and slaves who believe themselves to be out of earshot of their superiors. You wished to know my higher functions? You have no desire to know my higher functions. If they were in perfect order, both you and the incompetent technician would find yourselves quite dead."

Dustil jumped and scrambled to his knees to face XR, who had rolled quite close to him and was watching him with eye panels that did not flicker.

Suddenly, he felt terribly unsafe. He had trusted this droid.

He should have known.

"Are you… turning us in?" he asked, his breathing accelerating.

XR laughed, and the sound was a cold rattle. "If my primary programming were operational, I would not need to turn you in. You would have done it yourself by opening your foolish mouths in proximity to me. You were right, once, in thinking that through me you might be monitored. I told you that the Sith have their ways of rooting out those who are disloyal."

Dustil felt a thrill of terror.

"And so, if you should come across another XR model in your travels as a _Sith_…" XR paused, perhaps to enjoy the look of fury and revulsion that Dustil knew had crossed his face. "I would recommend that you take its presence far less lightly than you have taken mine. Do I make myself quite clear?"

Dustil worked for his voice. "You're a – a spy for the Sith?"

"And so much more." XR's eye panels glittered. "And now you have been warned."

The maintenance corridor was terribly silent. Even the hissing and beeping and thrumming of the machines seemed to have gone suddenly dead.

And then they exploded again in a frenzy of sound – alarms and light that Dustil had never heard or seen. He leapt to his feet and stared at the generators, and this time, when the hit came, he felt it. It rocked him back into the wall with a slam that made him howl, and threw him to the grated floor, where he split his lip and tasted blood. A series of explosions thundered overhead, shaking the maintenance level until Dustil's teeth knocked.

Were they under attack?

"We have been hit." XR said the words without emotion, and as Dustil scrabbled to his feet, he briefly wished that he were a droid and did not feel any fear. As it was, his whole body had come to life with it, pounding with the instant adrenaline of terror as alarms screamed all around him. Was he going to die like this? A slave in the sublevels of the _Overshadow_?

XR seemed to read his mind. "Were I sentient," he said coolly, "I would ignore my restrictions and run."

Dustil was too panicked to respond. _Could _he run? Wouldn't he be punished if he left the maintenance level? What if they hadn't been hit too badly – what if it was just a drill, or –

"The plasma generators will have already destabilized." XR's voice wrenched Dustil's thoughts apart. "By all means, if you desire death, continue to stand right where you are."

He did not desire death.

Dustil sucked in a breath and fled from the maintenance level, into the unguarded lift. It only went up one level, and he knew from the explosions he had just heard that it was probably suicide to go up that way. But it was suicide to stay where he was.

He pushed the button. Moments later, the lift doors slid open and he had to shield his eyes from stinging smoke. He pulled his shirt up over his mouth and nose, and ran into the corridor. He had a fairly clear idea of where he was, as far as the layout of the ship was concerned; there had been plenty of time, over the past eight months, to imagine exactly where he was in relationship to everything else. A few times, early on, he had even planned escape routes. But he had never attempted an escape after his first failed effort – he knew that there would always be at least one Sith patrol walking the corridor above him.

Now there was no one.

Dustil's heart slammed. If there was ever going to be a chance to escape, this was it. He just had to get to a hangar bay and stow away somehow – and in this chaos, he had a decent chance.

The klaxons on this level wailed in deeper tones that seemed to thrum through his head and straight into his teeth. Dustil winced against the noise and smoke and turned left, feeling his way along the wall toward what he knew was one of the cargo bays. It was the same cargo bay that he had made his way to, so many months ago, and the smoke thickened as he approached it, threatening to choke him. His lungs were on fire, and his eyes blurred so badly that he could barely see.

He dropped to his knees to get below the smoke, and began to crawl.

The internal doors of the cargo bay were blown wide apart; one had toppled to the ground and the other was swinging dangerously, torn from its magnetic track. Dustil scrambled past the opening, through shards of twisted metal that were hot against his hands. Most of it looked like blaster parts, and dimly he knew what must have happened. Some of the cargo had clearly been weaponry. Maybe some munitions had been destabilized, or an energy pack had overloaded somewhere - whatever it was, Dustil could clearly imagine the chain reaction, accounting for the sounds he had heard from below.

He didn't stop until he found that he was bracing his hands and knees not on the floor, but on something warm and wet. He squinted in the smoke, and then he gagged.

He was kneeling on a corpse.

Dustil's mind tumbled back in time with alarming speed, and suddenly he was in the ruins of his classroom again, trying to pull Bellamy's unconscious body out of the corpses that had just been his friends.

He gave a muffled cry into his shirt and stumbled forward on his knees. Beyond the first corpse there was another. With another cry he crawled over it too, but when he came to the third corpse he put down his head and simply went forward, bracing himself on whatever body he had to in order to stay beneath the rising smoke. The atmospheric scrubbers must have been damaged, unable to keep up with the contamination.

He had to get to the next lift and get off this level. He just had to make it to one of the transport bays – he didn't care how many dead Sith he had to crawl over on his way. His death wouldn't have bothered any of them.

Except maybe one.

Dustil's throat contracted at the thought of Jor, lying in a heap somewhere like this. For a horrible moment, he wondered if one of the bodies he had just used as traction had been Jor's, but the moment didn't last. Jor wouldn't have been in this area. He was a technician, and if he had gone back on duty after leaving the maintenance level, then he would be in the upper levels of the _Overshadow_ now, stationed either in droid repair or near a major computer frame. But there was more than one of those.

He could be anywhere.

When Dustil finally found the lift, the doors closed, mercifully shutting him away from the stench of smoke. He let his shirt drop and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily and staring at the panel of buttons that could take him to the other levels of the ship. He was free to go to any of them now – no one was watching him. He could make a run for the hangar bays. His finger lingered for a split second on the button that would take him there.

And then he pressed a higher one instead.

He wasn't sure what possessed him. If Jor was already dead, it wouldn't do either of them any good for Dustil to go looking for him. And if he wasn't dead, he probably didn't need Dustil's help. But as the lift rocketed upward and the alarms sounded around him, Dustil felt strangely certain that he was doing what he had to do. And when he raced out of the lift again and weaved his way through the chaos of Sith soldiers who didn't even seem to see him, Dustil felt sure that he was going in the right direction. Jor was here somewhere – he knew it – he knew he couldn't possibly knowit – but his gut was leading without permission from his brain, and he could only follow.

Slanted viewports punctuated the observational level of the _Overshadow_, and through their reinforced panes he could see stars, for the first time in more than half a year. The lights of battle raced through the darkness; streaks of laser cannon fire and explosions, all of it reflected off the hulls of the manuevering ships, and on the specks of acrid smoke that drifted through the corridors even here, though less densely on this level. The ship felt more surreal to Dustil at that moment than at any time in all his nightamrish days aboard it.

The Republic was out there.

There was a lump in Dustil's throat as he continued to find his way blindly toward wherever Jor might be. The Republic was _out there_. They had come. He had wished so hard for this moment, but now that it was here, he realized just how foolish his wish had been. The Republic hadn't come to rescue him – they only wanted to destroy this ship. They didn't know or care that he was on it. And if they triumphed, he would die.

Against everything he had ever been taught, Dustil prayed the Sith would win.

Sith soldiers streamed past him, up the incline in the long corridor, their boots pounding as they evacuated the area that he was approaching. Dustil knew the bridge was on this level, and guessed that they must be heading there, racing to their stations, paying no attention to those who were unconscious on the floor from the first salvo. Some of them might even have been dead. Dustil scanned their faces for the one he wanted, but he didn't see Jor, and so he pressed forward.

"You were told to evacuate," barked a soldier, catching Dustil in the ribs with his elbow in order to turn him around. He apparently didn't notice, in the fray, that Dustil wasn't even in a crew uniform, let alone a military one.

Dustil pushed the man off him and waited for the retaliation he knew would come – but the soldier didn't give him another glance.

"It's your hide," he said sharply, continuing toward his destination without turning around.

Dustil did the same. When he came to the bottom of the sloping corridor, it emptied into a wide, circular area, ringed by control consoles. The smoke was bad here too, but it was clear to Dustil that it wasn't the reason the soldiers had evacuated. All along one half of the room the consoles had exploded outward, ripping huge sheets of paneling from the walls and toppling whole frames over a scree of frayed wiring and shattered keypads. The buzz of energy, hissing and sparking along exposed conduits, seemed as loud here as the wailing sirens. Dustil raked his eyes over the debris, and when he found what he was looking for, his breath caught.

Pinned beneath one of the massive panels so that only half his body was visible, was Jor. His eyes were closed.

Dustil was never really sure what happened next. He remembered thinking that the room was a death trap, and then he didn't remember thinking anything. He found himself on his knees beside Jor's torso, digging his fingers beneath the corner of the giant panel and trying to heft it upward. A surge of electricity shocked him, like a hammer to the head and fire up his arms, and sent him stumbling back on reflex; he fumbled his clumsy hold on the panel and fell to the ground. It was impossible to grip – it would kill him – it was so heavy –

It didn't matter. If Jor wasn't already dead, he could die of electrocution or suffocation at any moment. Dustil wiped his sweating hands on his shirt and dove in again, desperate to dig them under the panel, clawing for a hand hold. For a moment, there was nothing but sparks and smoke and excruciating pain, but there was no choice. He had to find the strength.

And suddenly, he did.

It was over in a moment. Without ever being sure how he had gotten his grip, or where, or maybe even _if_ – Dustil was on his feet, righting the panel with one movement and tipping it back with a light shove of his shoulder.

It toppled to the other side as though it weighed nothing.

Dustil gazed at it, and then looked down at his hands.

At his feet, Jor shifted and released a rasp of breath. Dustil turned his eyes to him, and then he realized that he had unearthed not one trapped Sith, but two.

Sprawled just on the other side of Jor, cradling his leg and staring at Dustil in open shock, was the last person in the world he would ever have helped on purpose. Dustil stared back at Vortok in equal shock, for a moment unable to comprehend what he had done. In all the chaos of the ship falling to pieces around him, this seemed to make the least sense. Lt. Commander Vortok coughed, his lips twisted in pain over his teeth, but his eyes remained wide and locked on Dustil.

He heard the sound of footsteps pounding suddenly up behind him, but it wasn't enough warning to avoid being nearly knocked off his feet by someone rushing past him.

"What the _hell,_" the man growled, crouching down immediately beside Vortok. It was Enor. The Lieutenant who had mocked him outside the empty prison cells. He did not look amused now. "They said you - "

"Forget it," Vortok rasped, tearing his gaze away from Dustil at last. He slapped his hand onto Enor's shoulder so that he could be hauled up onto his good foot, favoring the wounded leg. Enor carelessly pushed one of Jor's limp arms aside to make room, and Dustil clenched his hands into fists, the taste of his own blood suddenly sharp in his mouth. He didn't dare to move.

"What about Reymark?" Enor looked down at Jor at last, nudging him more forcefully now with his foot.

"He won't be around much longer," Vortok said, catching his breath from a coughing fit. "Leave him. I'm needed on the bridge."

A hand came out of nowhere and grabbed the back of Dustil's neck, gripping tight and pulling him hard against a large chest. He tried on instinct to wriggle free, but the soldier - he must have come in close behind Enor - snatched one of his arms and pinned it so high against his back that Dustil had to scrabble up onto the balls of his feet to save something in shoulder ripping.

"Isn't this that hostage from the - "

"What the _hell_," Enor snarled again, scowling now as he noticed Dustil for the first time.

"Leave him too."

Enor looked to Vortok in surprise. Dustil closed his eyes against the pain in his twisted shoulder. Why couldn't they have left Vortok for dead? Why did they have to come back? He could have helped Jor by now, could have made a run for the hangars…

Wait. Leave him?

"Leave him?" Enor echoed Dustil's confused thought in words. "But - "

"He's not going anywhere."

Dustil opened his eyes. Maybe it was the haze in the air, or the liquid pain in the corners of his vision, but there was something wrong about the way Vortok was staring at him.

"If we leave him running around at a time like thi - "

"There's nothing he can do to the ship that's going to put us in a worse situation than we're in, so just shut up and get me to the bridge before we're all floating in deep space. When this is done we'll worry about the kid. I think we can find a better use for him than the sublevels."

Dustil was released so quickly that he stumbled into the nearest wrecked console. Sparks burned in flashes over his tingling arm and something sliced into his temple, but he barely noticed, too stunned to see the Sith soldiers - all of them, even Vortok, limping hastily forward with the Lieutenant's support - leaving the control room behind without another backward glance. Leaving him alone.

Not alone.

Dustil scrambled forward and grabbed Jor under the armpits, desperate to drag him away from the open electricity of the ruined computer panels. Jor was heavier than he looked; lanky as he was, he was also very tall, and Dustil had a hard time pulling the entire limp weight of him along the floor. It seemed odd that Jor should be difficult to move, after the relative ease with which he had shoved over the giant computer panel. But maybe the panels were more lightweight than he had thought.

Jor's shoulders jerked, and he gave a low, unconscious groan.

"Yeah, I'm trying," Dustil muttered, mapping his way to the med bay in his mind and trying to ignore the alarms that mercilessly blasted his eardrums. But it was difficult to concentrate, and he found himself beginning to panic. He didn't know how long Jor had, and even if he _did_ get to the med bay, there was a good chance that no one was going to care whether Jor lived or died, given the number of Sith on the ship who had been injured.

Then again, there wasn't anywhere else to take him.

Dustil lowered himself to get a better grip, and he hauled Jor's gangling frame away from the shambles of the consoles and toward the up-sloping corridor.

They hadn't made it far before the ship took another hit and Dustil shouted with surprise; the force of it wrenched his hands from Jor and threw them both against the corridor wall. Dustil's nose was shoved flat against one of the slanted viewports, and he suddenly found himself staring straight out at the battle, unable to look away.

He watched as Sith and Republic snub fighters raced circles around each other, firing until their opponents exploded. Dustil gazed at the explosions, his eyes drawn helplessly to the glow of one and then another, mesmerized by their deadly light. Briefly, he imagined who might have been inside those ships, just moments ago – and then he stopped himself. Those were no longer ships. No longer vessels with living creatures inside them. Nothing but fire and dust.

He had seen so many holovid sequences that looked like this.

How had it never once sickened him to watch?

A burst of stronger light at last tore his eyes away from the weaving combat wings. The ship rocked again as turbolaser fire tore into it, let loose by the capital ship hoving into view at the edge of Dustil's field of vision. A _Dreyder_-class Republic cruiser. Two lighter cruisers drifted into formation with it, and a dozen new wings of snub fighters launched from opening bays like swarms of insects.

"Dus… Dustil."

Dustil dropped instantly into a crouch. He could do nothing about the battle outside, but the injured soldier at his feet – he could try to do something about that.

Jor looked at him with glazed and slitted eyes, moving his head slightly from side to side. He looked like he was working his mouth to speak again.

"You're fine," Dustil said, relieved. "You're fine, don't worry about it, I'm going to get you to the med bay. You just got knocked out, that's all." He didn't know if that was true – not really. For all he knew, every bone in Jor's legs was broken. But there wasn't any point in thinking like that.

"What… happ…"

"We're under attack," Dustil told him.

Jor's eyes widened, but he soon closed them again and winced. "How'd you… find…"

Dustil paused, not sure how to explain how he had known where to find Jor, and a moment later, he was spared from having to answer at all. An explosion rang out in terrifying proximity to them, making Dustil gasp in fear and snap his head in the direction of the sound. It had come from the far end of the corridor, up near the lift, somewhere between him and the bridge. But he had no choice. He had to go that way if he wanted to get Jor anywhere near a medical tech – or anyone at all. This area had been wholly evacuated except for the two of them.

"Come on," said Dustil grimly, grabbing hold of Jor again. "Just stay still." But he realized he was talking to himself. Jor had slumped again and was as lifeless now as he had been beneath the shattered console.

He had just shifted his feet to take up Jor's weight when a myriad of white flashes from beyond the viewport dazzled him. He looked up again, his hands still under Jor's arms, and gaped.

The slight visual distortions of real space warping around the exit point of a hyperspace jump marked the arrival of six of the largest, sleekest capital ships he'd ever seen, right on top of the battle. He had only a heartbeat to wonder how they could have possibly calculated such a jump with enough precision not to collide with every major ship in the vicinity, and then the new ships opened fire – every line of brilliant light streaking toward the Republic cruisers. He had no idea what class of ship the new cruisers were, but they were the most dangerous looking ships he'd ever seen, frightening, and they outnumbered the Republic ships almost three to one.

The deck shifted treacherously beneath Dustil's feet again. No matter the sudden shift in battle odds, the _Overshadow _was still being struck. He snapped his gaze away from the viewport, trying to ignore the sour heaviness in his stomach; Jor seemed just as heavy as Dustil dragged him up the incline in the corridor. The _Overshadow_ continued to rattle under repeated assaults that made it nearly impossible for him to keep hold of Jor at all. When they finally came to the lift, Dustil's hope of getting Jor down to the med bay was dashed; emergency lockdown had made the lift inoperable. They weren't going anywhere.

"Damn it," Dustil hissed, settling Jor's head and shoulders on the floor. He righted himself and pounded the heel of his hand against the button panel again, unwilling to take no for an answer. They had no choice – they _had_ to get to the lower levels. "Come_ on_."

From within the lift shaft there came a rumble of mechanical sound, and Dustil felt a stab of hope.

"Yes," he said under his breath. "Yes, come on, come on…" He pressed the button again, hitting it several times in rapid succession as though that would speed the process. Beyond the lift door, from somewhere above, he heard another, louder rumble, followed by the magnetic slide of something coming closer. Relieved, Dustil crouched and took hold of Jor, prepared to drag him into the lift.

No sooner had he crouched than the top of the lift door exploded outward with a crack so loud that Dustil's brain seemed to split. With a hoarse cry he dove to the floor, covering Jor with his body and covering his own head with his hands. Over him, he felt the searing heat of the blast – through the cracks between his elbows and the floor, he saw the brief glare of fire – there was a screeching noise, like metal being ripped in half –

Something struck Dustil in the back of the head. His chin slammed the floor.

There was nothing else.

* * *

Dustil knew where he was before he opened his eyes. The smell of the room, the sensation of a thin mattress under his shoulder blades – he was in the med bay. His suspicion was confirmed when a rough hand grabbed his wrist, yanked his arm forward, pushed up his sleeve and stabbed an injector into his vein. He kept his eyes shut. If she thought he was unconscious, maybe she'd leave him alone.  
He had no such luck.

"You again," muttered the tech. "I was given leave to get rid of you if you couldn't keep yourself stitched together – perhaps you'll recall? I'd be giving you a _lethal_ injection if it were up to me. There's too many injuries around here to be wasting any time on yours. If you were stronger, maybe – if you were older – you might make yourself useful around here. As it is, I can't see why the Lieutenant Commander – well. Maybe it's not my place to question. But I still think –"

"No one cares what you think."

Dustil jerked at the sound of Vortok's voice.

"Conscious then? I thought so. Get out of my _way,_ woman – "

"Yes sir, I'm sorry sir."

"You're dismissed."

The tech's footsteps sped rapidly away, and there was a click as the med bay doors slid shut. Dustil heard two heavy, limping footfalls, and then Vortok was standing right over him. He could hear the man's labored breath.

"I know you're awake," said Vortok, in a soft voice. "You'll open your eyes and look at me or you won't have them for much longer."

Dustil opened his eyes, and his own breathing accelerated.

Vortok stared down at Dustil, his face full of contempt, disgust, and something… something else. Something that turned Dustil's stomach with ugly anticipation.

"I see you finally learned the rules of advancement, eh?" Vortok barely spoke above a whisper. "Finally managed to work your way up out of the sewage system, didn't you?"

Dustil drew a blank. He blinked up at Vortok, whose leg wasn't the only bit of him that was battered. The man's face bore wounds that were fresh and red, glistening with antiseptic. Dustil catalogued them briefly, and then craned his neck to see who else was in the med bay. Every bed was filled, but he saw no sign of Jor, and there was no movement from any of the soldiers. All of them seemed to be out cold.

He For all intents and purposes, he was alone with the Lt. Commander.

"You'll look at _me_ when I'm speaking," Vortok said. "And I will never need to tell you that again."

Dustil's eyes snapped to attention. Vortok's glittered down at him, alive with malice.

"If you think that assisting a superior officer has earned you the right to behave with disrespect, let me correct your misapprehension," he said, too quietly. "Whatever you may have done, you will be treated no differently from the others of your station. Is that clear?"

Dustil blinked at him again, unsure. And then, in his mind's eye, he saw the ruined computer panel toppling. He saw again the open shock on Vortok's face.

He had probably saved the man's life. Vortok's officer friends hadn't come back for him until the wreckage had been cleared. They would have left him there to die.

Satisfaction, smug and cold and not at all pleasant, touched the corners of Dustil's mind. He was on this cot, he was still alive, because Vortok _owed_ him.

Vortok seemed to hear his thoughts.

"If you _ever_ disobey me," he said menacingly, "if you ever _dare_ to throw that moment in my face, thinking it gives you some sort of power, then your death will be as slow as humanly possible and as painful as I can make it."

Dustil didn't move. He knew Vortok would make good on his threats, but somehow, terrible as the threats were, they could not quite crush his strange new satisfaction. Perhaps he could never throw that moment in Vortok's face… but maybe he didn't have to, and that was even better. That the man felt it necessary to give him such a speech was more than enough evidence that he had lost his footing somewhere – and suddenly, Dustil knew what it was that he saw in Vortok's expression, not quite hidden behind the hatred in his eyes.

It was fear.

Vortok smiled slightly, and the ghost of his fear seemed to vanish. He looked like himself again, cruel and amused. "But congratulations, boy," he said, in a louder voice. "You've earned your notice. Now you get to start at the lowest rung with all the rest of the scum-sucking bottom dwellers otherwise known as idiot recruits." He laughed softly. "Whether you survive it or not is your business. But I imagine your chances are good, if your desperation to stay alive is still as strong as ever."

Dustil could hardly make sense of what the man was saying, but he understood one thing. This was his invitation, this was the moment Jor had told him to prepare for. His throat closed; he could not feel his heartbeat; he could no longer see Vortok, though the man was right before him.

But he could see his father's face.

He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't _do_ it. He _wouldn't_ join the Sith – the Sith had obliterated Telos – the Sith had torn him from his home, his school, his mother – the Sith had beaten and mocked and enslaved him – they had ruthlessly murdered Republic officers and Republic children – he would never become one of them – he would never, _never _do it –

His expression must have mirrored the revulsion in his mind.

Vortok lowered his face near enough to Dustil's that he could smell the antiseptic in his wounds.

"Life is expensive," he said, exposing his teeth in a slow smile. "Sometimes you pay with your pride. Then again, you don't have to accept my offer… the choice is yours."

"_You always have a choice. Always. And the harder the choice is, the more important it is to make the right one."_

Dustil breathed unevenly. He realized that his hands were curled in tight fists; his unkempt fingernails cut into his palms so painfully that he knew he had drawn blood. He had to protest, he _had _to. He had to do it now, before it was too late, and take the consequences, no matter what they were.

But he did not want to die.

Vortok's leer became feral. "I'll take that as a yes."

He turned away from Dustil and limped to the med bay doors. They opened, and he turned his head sharply to the right.

"Show him where to go," Vortok snapped to someone Dustil could not see in the corridor beyond.

"Yes, sir."

Dustil closed his eyes. It was Jor.

He wondered if the room was shaking, or if it was just him.

"Hey, Dustil." Jor was in the room. "You're okay to go, right?"

Dustil opened his mouth and pulled for air, but every breath was shallow. His head was terribly light. Was he okay? Was that the question?

Had he just joined the _Sith_?

"Because I've got my orders… so we should really get going…"

Dustil opened his eyes and looked helplessly up at Jor, who was the closest thing he had in the world to a friend, but who had no idea – no _idea_ – what he was asking Dustil to do. Perhaps the Sith had destroyed Jor's planet too; perhaps he had joined them only because they had forced his hand. But he hadn't come from a family that had always served the Republic. He wasn't an Onasi. And it wasn't the same.

Repeated thoughts of his father and the Republic gave Dustil's brain a sudden jolt. He sat straight up as though shocked, as he remembered the battle he had seen.

"Oh good," said Jor, who looked tremendously relieved. "Come on, I'll show you –"

"What the hell _happened_?" Dustil demanded. "We were getting _destroyed_."

"You're telling me," said Jor with a laugh. He glanced down at himself, and Dustil realized that Jor was wearing a brace on one of his legs. "I thought I was a goner. Turns out I'll be fine in a week or so – the worst injuries I have are these giant bruises under my arms from someone who was dragging me around the ship." He grinned at Dustil, and then looked furtively around and lowered his voice. "Hey. Thanks."

Dustil shook his head, too overwhelmed to absorb Jor's gratitude. "It was the Republic?"

Jor shrugged. "Who else would it be? Led by some ship called the _Reliance_."

The lights in the med bay seemed to flash.

"The _Reliance_?" Dustil heard his own voice. It sounded like somebody else's.

"That's the one." Jor snorted. "Thanks to whatever bastard commands that thing, we were lucky to get into the spaceport."

The _Reliance. _It was a ship whose name Dustil had heard a thousand times. It was one of the ships whose schematics he had so obsessively studied.

He knew exactly who commanded it.

His heart crumpled.

"Hey, did you hear me?" Jor asked. "We're in the spaceport. They've already started sending transports down to Andros. We'll probably be going down tomorrow or the next day."

"We… will?" Dustil gazed vacantly away at the walls of the med bay.

"Yep." Jor grinned again, turned away, and marched as well as he could to the doors. "So come on, let's get you suited up. Looks like you're going to get outside after all. Great news, isn't it?"

Dustil felt his feet touch the floor before he realized he had made his decision. He wasn't even sure if he had made it now.

All he could see in his mind was the flash of light as Sith laser fire burst against the hull of a Republic cruiser, like the glint of sunlight off a Commander's rank bar, on the breast of his father's uniform as he turned from a window to say goodbye to his son one more time... leaving one more time for the front lines... once more, and the last time.

"_I hope you can understand, Dustil. This is something I have to do." _

"You'll be bunking with me for now. We've got some room in the 4A barracks, and since we'll be heading planetside any day now… I don't know how we'll be deployed down there, or how much training they're going to give you, but…"

Jor was talking, but Dustil didn't really hear him. His head hurt, he realized he was limping to favor a burning knee, and his chest felt so constricted that he was having trouble breathing. The walls went by, corridor after corridor, every other corner boasting darkened computer panels or the gray scoring left in the wake of electrical fires spidering over plasteel. A few soldiers passed them, but they didn't stop to say anything, or even to stare. It was like he suddenly wasn't there, like it was perfectly all right for him to be wandering the habitable levels.

Like he belonged.

"This is the place," Jor announced. "It smells like a busted fresher sometimes, but it beats the sublevels."

They were standing in a plain gray room, lined with gray lockers and gray bunks, and Dustil wasn't sure how he'd ended up here. All he could be sure of at the moment was that Jor seemed nervous, his words coming out fast, the edge to his voice uncertain. There was no one else in the room.

"Dustil…"

"One of these beds… is for me?"

"Yeah. Right here. My bunk's the next one over. Everyone else is on duty right now, but you'll meet them at the end of the day shift."

Dustil looked where Jor pointed and saw a bunk, gray as all the rest, flat with military smoothness, a grim mockery of what he would have called a bed in a home a lifetime away, and a luxury beyond all imagining in the cold and the heat of the maintenance sublevels.

On the bunk, folded in precise lines and planes that called to mind the sleekness of a ship's hull more than the softness of fabric, a uniform waited. Gray, black, smooth. Sith.

"It's a spare from the reserves. It might not be a good fit, but once we hit Andros…"

Dustil almost laughed. A good fit?

"Look. Dustil. I know that – "

"I'm sure it'll fit fine," Dustil said, somehow not at all surprised by the hoarseness in his voice. It sounded lower in his own ears than it ever had. He wanted to think it was just age. But he knew better.

The silence lasted too long. Dustil limped over to the bunk that was meant to be his and stared down at it.

"The fresher's right through there," Jor spoke again at last. "I'll… I'll go see if I can grab something from the mess. It's all still chaos right now. No one will notice."

"Yeah."

"Yeah. I'll… give you some time."

Dustil heard Jor's footsteps retreating, a tap and shuffle betraying his own limp. Like Vortok. Like the ship. So many broken pieces. But Dustil would have welcomed a million broken bones in that moment if only he could trade them for the empty weight in his gut.

_I hope you can understand… _

He sat down on the bunk and put out a hand, too numb to feel shame at its visible shaking, and tried to touch the uniform beside him. He couldn't seem to make contact; his hand hovered over the fabric as though suspended there by repulsors, pushed away in some last effort of subconscious will or fate.

But what had either will or fate given him, since that first crack of thunder that was not thunder in the clear skies of Telos?

_This is something I have to do… _

Holding his breath, Dustil lowered his hand through the last barrier of air, and touched the folded sleeve of his uniform.

He was afraid that it would fit him after all.


	7. Chapter 7

Part 2

7.

"Which type and size did you request?"

"Standard military recruit, size thirty, sir."

"Yes, I have it here – let's have the old one."

"Right here, sir."

"You've been in a twenty-six?"

"Yes, sir."

"How long have you been wearing this?"

"Two and a half months, sir."

"Two and a half _months_?" The Lieutenant looked disgusted. "I'll have to write you up for that."

"But sir – "

"Shut up. You think you can parade around with your trousers up to your knees and call yourself a Sith? You'll never be commissioned."

"It was all that was available on board the _Overshadow_, sir."

Lieutenant Semic sneered for a moment, then ripped the smaller uniform from Dustil's hands and continued his inspection of the other recruits, while Dustil quickly got into his new uniform and smoothed it down along his limbs until he was satisfied that it actually fit him properly and met all regulations.

He had really grown.

It was one of the first changes he had noticed during his training months with the Sith fleet: he had grown tall in his captivity. When he had changed his ragged Telosian clothes for the first time in nearly a year, the far more accurate fit of his new uniform had shocked him. He hadn't realized it, but his trousers had crept up to the middles of his calves, and his shirtsleeves had nearly found their ways to his elbows. It had felt strange to wear clothing that fit again, and stranger to see evidence that he had gained so many inches.

His first look into a mirror had _really _shocked him. It hadn't mattered that the mirrors in the freshers were barely big enough to see into – Dustil had gaped at the stranger reflected back at him, and for one truly bizarre moment he had not recognized himself in the slightest. His hair had grown down past his chin – the Sith had cropped it right away, saying they didn't need a little girl in their ranks, but it was the only restoration they had been able to make. The rest of Dustil's appearance was permanently altered. His face looked like someone else's. It was thinner, but stronger. Older. His eyes had sharpened, and their new expression still unnerved him every time he caught a glimpse of himself. Maybe it was his new height, or maybe it was the hardness in his look, but he was intimidating – a fact he wasn't quite sure what to do with.

And now he had grown again, in height and breadth. He felt like he was twice his old size, after ten weeks of square meals and basic training in the grueling heat of the Androsian summer, under the command of Lieutenant Semic, who seemed to prefer it when the recruits were in terrible pain.

"And _you_?" the Lieutenant sneered. He was standing in front of Jor now, tapping the toe of his boot in slow rhythm, and Dustil knew the tone of his voice. He was looking for a reason to punish someone.

"My current uniform fits me, sir."

"Oh, so your growth spurt is over?" Lieutenant Semic laughed. "At least _some_ of you are old enough to be here. Not like some of the _children _I've been saddled with." He turned directly around to face Dustil. "How old are you again, Onasi?"

Dustil's stomach did the sickening flip it did every time he heard himself addressed by his surname. He was not used to them knowing it, or calling him by it. He wasn't sure he ever would be.

"Fifteen, sir."

It was a lie, but fifteen sounded less childish than fourteen, and Dustil had decided on his first night bunking with the rest of the recruits and ensigns that it was probably smart to conceal every possible weakness, including his age. He realized now that he could have passed for sixteen – even seventeen, maybe – but it was too late.

"Fif_teen_." Lieutenant Semic's eyes glinted, and Dustil gritted his teeth. Semic made an example of him more often than any of the others in his unit, and he didn't know why. The man just had it in for him, ever since their transport had touched down at the Sith base. Dustil had done his best to blend in and stay neutral, unnoticeable, agreeable – anything to avoid the attention that the Sith seemed determined to give him – but of course it hadn't worked.

If he was getting used to anything, it was the abuse of authority.

"Think you're a _man_ at fifteen, Onasi?"

It was a trick question. Saying no would lead Semic to question why a weakling boy was any asset to the Sith, and Dustil would be set to some ridiculous task to prove that he should be allowed to stay. Saying yes would provoke Semic to test Dustil's manhood in some way or other that would, Dustil was sure, end in mild bloodshed at the very least.

Since neither option was attractive, he chose the one that was least offensive to his pride.

"Yes, sir," he said, and his voice rang out in the barracks. Across from him, over Semic's shoulder, he caught sight of Jor's expression – torn between finding Dustil an idiot and finding him heroic.

"_Yes_?" Semic repeated, clearly delighted. "Are you sure about that, Onasi? Last chance to change your mind."

Dustil raised his chin slightly and remained at perfect attention.

"My mind hasn't changed, sir."

Semic stepped up closer to him. The lieutenant was barely taller than Dustil, and probably no more than ten years older, but though he was in his mid-twenties, he lacked the youthful and powerful appearance of many of the Sith lieutenants. Semic's cheeks and jaw were pockmarked by what must once have been a vicious skin condition, and though the condition itself was long gone, its crater-like scars remained. His fine, fair hair was thinning, and his hairline was receding, a fact that even a tightly cropped haircut could not conceal. And though he was strong and muscular, he was by no means a broadly built man; his frame was wiry at best. Dustil had quickly outstripped him – and most of the rest of the unit – in shoulder-width, since the training had begun.

But it wasn't Semic's appearance that irritated Dustil, it was his presence – or, more accurately, his _lack_ of presence. It was clear that Semic had no desire to be stuck on Andros training recruits. He was probably frothing at the mouth to join his senior lieutenants in active battle. But it was obvious to Dustil why Semic was stuck in charge of grunt training. He was nothing like Vortok, who could make a room colder just by standing in it, and who had instantly commanded Dustil's hatred and fear. Semic had no such innate power. His power had all been handed down to him, and his head had swelled with it, so that he believed himself to be far more impressive than he actually was.

Dustil had overheard some of the ensigns talking about Semic late one night, after a particularly nasty day on the obstacle course, shortly after the _Overshadow_ had arrived at Andros. None of them were happy to be here, that much he'd known just from Jor. They'd been told they were going to receive special counter-insurgency training, and had expected to spend no more than a couple days under the instruction of a warrant officer before being released to their duties. But Semic clearly had other plans. He'd dumped even the ensigns in with the raw recruits, claiming they'd all gone soft off-planet and that no one but a _real_ officer would be able to whip them into the proper shape – an onerous duty whose necessity, he told them daily, was deeply resented. But it was glaringly evident how much of a lie that was. Semic relished pounding them into the dirt every day, and if the recruits got the worse end of the grunt labor the ensigns still came in for their fair share of scorn, and no amount of rank pride spared them Semic's tyranny. He was in total authority over the lower ranks on the Andros base. No one in his unit, as far as Dustil knew, had even come face to face with the base Captain, the XO, or any officer above lieutenant. Semic tormented them, for no reason other than to entertain himself.

Dustil could barely hide how much he despised him.

"Was that a _challenge_, Onasi?" Semic said sharply, stepping even closer.

"No, sir."

"Because it sounded like a challenge."

Dustil kept his mouth shut. There was no way out of the conflict now, but he had no intention of digging himself in deeper.

"Even _you_ can't be stupid enough to challenge _me_," Semic went on, swaying back from Dustil and turning on his heel. He strolled between the bunks, toward the other end of the barracks. "So you must have been challenging someone else." He stopped in front of Bronden Hull, the oldest and by far the largest member of Dustil's unit, and cocked his head. "Hull?"

"Yes, sir, Lieutenant Semic, sir." Hull's beefy face reddened and he stared straight ahead, while Dustil watched from the corner of his eye and tried to prepare himself for whatever was coming. He hadn't been given a reason yet to dislike Hull on an individual basis, but he had always disliked him on group principal. He assumed him to be just like every other Sith soldier apart from Jor – petty and abusive at best, cruel and violent at worst.

"Did you hear Onasi down there?"

"Yes, sir."

"I believe he was challenging _you_, Hull. He seems to think he's the big man of this unit. What do you think of that?"

"Whatever you think, sir."

"Good." Semic glanced back at Dustil and bared his dull teeth in a false smile. "Because I think it's despicable."

"Yes, sir."

"I think the runt needs to be put in his place."

Hull licked his lips, and his eyes darted to Dustil, but only briefly. They snapped back to attention before Semic noticed the breach. "Yes, sir."

"And since the task is below me," said Semic, moving his eyes back to Hull, "I'll leave it to you. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Line up."

Dustil turned sharply, like a piece of machinery, and lined up with his unit. Two by two, they marched out of the temperature-regulated interior of the barracks and out into the sprawling courtyard of the Sith base and the oppressive humidity of another Andros summer day. They said that the seasons would change soon, and alarmingly, but it seemed to Dustil that there was no end in sight to the stifling heat. It was only moments before sweat began to roll down the back of his neck and trickle down his temples and his spine, but he didn't move to scratch his skin or wipe the sweat away. Ten weeks of training and punishment had disciplined his reactions.

"Step up, Onasi," barked Semic.

They had reached the Pit, which lived up to its name; a small circular area of the training courtyard that looked like a mudhole for animals. Dustil and his unit had spent more time doing mindless push ups in that mud than he could think about without growing instantly exhausted.

He stepped forward from his line and held himself at attention.

"Get in the Pit."

"Yes, sir." Dustil marched into the mud, and his boots made sucking noises. He wanted to catch Jor's eyes, but resisted. It was better for them both if they made very few public signs of having forged an actual friendship.

"Get in there with him, Hull."

"Yes, sir." Hull followed Dustil and faced him, expressionless, across the ring of mud.

Dustil swept his eyes over Hull's enormous frame and tried to think of how to guard himself from the onslaught that neither of them could now avoid. Hull was four or five inches taller and he outweighed Dustil by half. He was an ensign who had been with the Sith as long as Jor, but nothing about him gangled.

"Now, Onasi, a grown _man_ like you shouldn't have any trouble fighting down an ensign-level soldier." Semic laughed. "I'm sure we'll all learn by watching your expert skills in action. Hull?"

"Yes, sir."

"Show me how you would keep a rebellious Androsian in line."

Dustil barely had time to put up his fists before Hull launched forward and threw his entire weight against him, knocking him back several steps. Dustil managed to stay upright, but that was about all. More or less blindly, he threw a punch, and though he connected with something, it didn't stop Hull from delivering a right hook that knocked Dustil's head in the other direction and made him spit blood. He saw the rest of his unit standing there watching him, a semi-circular blur in his vision.

"Is that the best you can do?" Lieutenant Semic shouted from the edge of the Pit. "You think I'm going to send you on patrol in the city if you can't defend yourself better than that?"

Dustil raised his fists to cover himself, and just in time. Hull had already thrown another punch, and this time, he was able to deflect it. He followed the deflection with a hard blow to Hull's chest, aiming just below his collarbone and off to the right. Dustil had been elbowed there by Semic, several times and very sharply, during the training weeks. He knew exactly how much it hurt.

Hull winced, growled, and swung.

Dustil held out for as long as he could, but it wasn't long. He was strong, but not as strong as Hull, nor was he as fast or as well trained. He knew very little about hand-to-hand combat, and soon he was outdone. He found himself staring up at the bright blue of the Andros sky, gasping for air that wouldn't come. Hull had thrown him down onto his back and knocked the wind flat out of him.

There was the sucking noise of boots in the mud, and then Semic's pockmarked face appeared overhead, eclipsing the sun. Dustil was reminded of another moment, in another life. Another face appearing, just like this.

He lay where he was, barely breathing, and with a grim shove of his will, he pushed his father's face out of his mind. There was no sense in wishing for Carth Onasi to arrive. Not anymore. Because he _had_ arrived – the _Reliance_ had come.

But it wouldn't be back.

Jor had later told Dustil everything he knew about the battle that had so surprised the _Overshadow. _They had made their final hyperspace jump to the edge of the Andros system, not realizing that Andros had come under Republic attack. They arrived to find the planet surrounded by Republic ships, and though the Sith had launched immediate defenses from both the planet and the orbiting station, the Republic had a tremendous advantage. No one had anticipated their effort to retake Andros, and the Sith had been caught unawares. The Republic had been in an excellent position to recover the planet, and even the _Overshadow's_ appearance on the scene had posed very little threat – especially when the _Reliance_ peeled off from the battle to intercept them. Ship to ship, the _Reliance _had them outclassed, and with an escort of cruisers and fighters in tow, she posed a threat the _Overshadow _simply couldn't withstand.

And then those ships – those sleek, strange Sith ships – had appeared all at once from the depths of space to open fire on the Republic cruisers. And the tide had turned.

Darth Revan had come.

It was a fact that awed everyone, even Dustil. The idea of having been in such close proximity to the Dark Lord of the Sith was terrifying and unbelievable, but they all believed it, because there was no one else it could have been. Once Revan had come, the battle had turned on its head almost instantly. Republic capital ships had burned between the stars, snubs had vanished by the hundreds in blasts of light, and Andros, which had been on the verge of freedom from the Sith, was pocketed by them again. The _Overshadow_, though badly damaged, had finally managed to dock above Andros as the battle fell apart.

No one knew what had become of the _Reliance_. They said it had fled the battle, along with the rest of the scraps remaining of the Republic force that day. They said Revan's ships had chased it into the darkness. They said the _Reliance _had been outnumbered so grotesquely that it hadn't had a chance in hell.

Revan never left enemies alive, they said.

When Dustil's panting had subsided, he lay quite still, gazing up at his lieutenant and waiting for his order. He was no longer waiting for anything – or anyone – else. He had closed his mind on all hope. He knew better now.

His father was dead.

"There are _riots _out there in the city, Onasi." Semic still stood over him, his expression somewhere between mockery and disgust. "And I won't embarrass the Sith by sending out a soldier who can easily be broken by a rebel civilian."

Dustil wished it were within his rights to point out that Hull wasn't exactly a civilian. He was more like a tank droid.

"Everyone take a good look at Onasi." Semic smirked. "Remember just how threatening he is. I'm sure you'll all live in fear of him after this."

There was more than one snicker of laughter from the observing unit, and Dustil listened to it with a sinking heart. Since coming to Andros, his one saving grace had been that none of his fellow trainees had seemed inclined to pick fights with him. Now that they had seen him bested in combat, that was probably about to change.

"Onasi, that's a hundred push ups on your knuckles. The rest of you, get inside and make yourselves presentable. If there's mud on your boots when you walk into that mess, you won't eat. Hull, you stay where you are and make sure Onasi does what he's told. If he doesn't, you double the punishment, using whatever means are necessary – and I want to _hear _about it if he doesn't."

"Yes, sir."

Dustil pushed himself up to a sitting position as the rest of his unit marched away. He lifted the back of his wrist and wiped it under his nose. It came away covered with thick, bright blood. He wiped his mouth with the back of his other wrist. It was bleeding too.

He was going to look like a punching bag, once the brusies set in.

He turned over, clenched his fists, and planted his knuckles in the mud.

"One."

He pushed up.

With Hull policing him, Dustil lowered and raised himself until his arms screamed, while blood dripped from his nose into the mud of the pit. At thirty, he wanted to quit. At fifty, he _needed_ to quit. At seventy, his muscles jumped and nearly quit without permission, but he gritted his whole face and made them work. He had no choice. He couldn't do two hundred, so he had to finish these. By the ninetieth push up, he couldn't feel his hands, and his strength was utterly gone. He had to find something – some motivation, some will from within – anything that could possibly fuel him. He thought of Semic's self-satisfied face, and it infuriated him; Dustil clung to the fury and used it as muscle. Semic was a pathetic nothing. Semic was a blatant coward. Semic was such a weakling that he hadn't even fought Dustil himself, he had sent Hull in for him.

But Dustilwasn't weak. The more Semic tortured him like this, the stronger he would become. And the stronger he became, the more chance there was that someday, somehow, he would get the bastard back.

"I'll get him back," he said noiselessly, his lips barely moving, his eyes clamped shut with effort. "I will."

"Ninety-six."

"I'll _get_ him." The sun beat against Dustil's neck and burned against the back of his uniform, turning the stiff material into an oven.

"Ninety-seven."

"I'll make him suffer."

"Ninety-eight."

Dustil couldn't even move his mouth. The pain was tremendous, and so was the will required to fight through it. He lowered himself, his triceps shaking so badly that he feared they would give out and force him into a hellish continuation – he couldn't let it happen. Not now, not at the very end. He tightened every muscle in his body for support, and pushed up.

"Ninety-nine."

Two more. There were just two. Sweat and blood dripped from his face and rained onto the mud between his hands. His knuckles burned as he added pressure to them for the ninety-ninth time, and then pushed up again.

"One hundred."

Dustil lowered himself for the last time, and finally, to his horror, his triceps shuddered with fatigue and failed him. His chin and chest smacked the ground. Frantic, he looked up at Hull.

Hull was very deliberately not watching him

Dustil scrambled to push up again, and he held himself up on his arms, praying that he wouldn't have to continue. He had nothing left.

"Let's go."

Dustil dropped to his knees, overwhelmed with relief and pain. He got to his feet, shaking, and followed Hull back to the barracks. He had no idea why the ensign had spared him. He could have tortured him further, it had been within his rights – why had he shown mercy?

"Hot as hell out here," Hull muttered. "Can't barely breathe."

So he had just wanted to get in out of the sun?

Dustil was fine with that.

He missed dinner that night, because he couldn't get the mud out of his boots quickly enough, and though he was ravenous, he appreciated the opportunity for what it was. While the others were eating, he stayed alone in the barracks and soaked in the silence. He hadn't been truly alone like this since they had been transferred down to Andros, and he knew now why Jor had liked the comparative quiet of the sublevels so much. Luxurious as it was to have a bunk to sleep in, real food to eat, and a pair of trousers that fit properly, there were many days when Dustil would have traded in those comforts just to be left alone again in the maintenance level of the _Overshadow_. Just to go a whole day without seeing or hearing a single Sith. Compared to them, XR's company had been positively inspiring.

Dustil really missed XR.

When he had finished cleaning his boots, he laid back in his bunk and stretched his sore arms across his chest one at a time as he stared up at the gray ceiling, remembering. He still felt guilty about leaving XR down in the sublevels to get flattened by the plasma burst. But XR – or what had remained of him– had not resented Dustil's choice in the slightest. On the contary, when Dustil had returned to the sublevels to see what had become of him, the droid had actually congratulated him for making such an unsentimental escape.

_"Maybe… maybe I can fix you."_

_ "Oh yes, that's highly likely. Let's calculate the probability that you will be successful where every trained technician on this ship has failed."_

_ "Don't be sarcastic."_

_ "Less idiocy on your part will ensure less sarcasm on mine."_

But Dustil didn't have the heart for a comeback. His heart had dropped into his stomach when he had laid eyes on the remains of XR. He had seen right away that there was nothing he could do. XR had been a scrap heap before; now his joints were melted together, his eye panels had shuttered and welded closed, and his arm units jerked and snapped where the wires had frayed. His frame was totally useless. Nothing but junk.

_"Of course, my core is perfectly salvageable,"_ he had commented, his mechanical voice surprisingly even. _"Unsurprisingly, however, none of the resident idiots has bothered to retrieve it."_

_ "I could do it."_

XR had given his head unit a blind rattle. _"Oh could you. I see. You've become a master of advanced technology during your two days as a recruit?"_

_ "No… but couldn't you talk me through it?"_

_ "To what end?"_

_ "To – to whatever end you want. Hey – maybe I could find another frame or something, you know? Stick you in there."_

_ "Aren't you imaginative today. I would ask if you had hit your head in the battle, but alas, your reasoning powers were equally poor before we were assaulted."_

_ "XR… could you cut it out? I'm trying to help here."_

XR had sighed, a rattle of sound in his ruined frame. _"I suppose I should be less vicious. But as these may be my last functioning moments, I beg you not to deprive me of this final entertainment."_

Dustil had sighed, but he'd grinned a bit. _"All right," _he'd said. _"Insult me all you want, just talk me through this, and I'll save your core, just in case. You never know, right?"_

_ "It's clear that at least one of us never does."_

"_Hey, watch it, or I'll unscrew your head."_

For the first time, it hadn't been an empty threat.

"_Very well. Begin by opening the front panel below my head unit. There is a small groove to the left. Slide your fingertip against the edge of the door there and pull up."_

Dustil had spent most of the night with his face screwed up and his tongue caught between his teeth, following XR's commands. He found the source of the original damage to XR's functionality – a very slender transmitter cable hung free where the connector had been ripped from its socket, which was crushed. The socket looked like a miniscule computer, a glittering and exquisitely constructed chip system no larger than a fingernail, so fragile and complex that it was no wonder to Dustil that Jor, or anyone, had been incapable of repairing it. He studied it for a moment and then went back to listening to XR's instructions, trying to memorize every single one, in case there was ever an opportunity to put the droid back together. He knew it was a long shot. But XR had become… a sort of friend.

"_The last step will be to disconnect my central controls, as I have explained. There is no need to shut down my functions one by one. There would have been, if I were fully operational, but as you see, I am not in optimal condition."_

"_Got it."_

There had been a long pause.

"_Hey, XR?"_

"_Ah. Just when I thought I would be spared a little parting conversation."_

"_Yeah. I just… you know… you've actually been pretty –"_

"_Have mercy. Disconnect me."_

"_Okay, okay. Just… thanks. All right?"_

XR didn't answer right away.

"_Most Sith believe the XR model to be little more than a tactical analysis computer," _he finally said, rather slowly. _"A war advisor. Such is my surface functionality – and indeed, I am an excellent tactician, programmed by the very best. The arrogant commanders of this fleet rarely take advantage of my genius on that score, preferring to imagine themselves the superior tacticians, but that is unimportant here. What is of note is that they have no knowledge of my… other function. Neither would you, if it were operable, for I would be prevented from speaking of it."_

Dustil had listened closely.

"_Those who do know are the most elite and highly ranked of all the Sith, and they would not take well to discovering that you share their secret. You would be very unwise to admit what you know. Very unwise."_

The maintenance level had been eerily quiet. Many of the generators had been shut down since the battle, and Dustil could hear his own breathing in the silence as he absorbed XR's warning.

"_Now shut me down."_

Dustil had done so.

XR's guts were still wrapped in the blanket Jor had given him, a neat, compact, and innocuous gray package at the bottom of Dustil's locker. He knew he'd probably never have an opportunity to use them, but he couldn't bring himself to throw them away. They were his only personal possession, now that his Telosian clothing was long gone. He had nothing but the uniform on his back and the droid guts in his locker.

Save one very small object.

Dustil looked both ways to be sure he was alone. He rolled over onto his stomach, slowly so as not to worsen the soreness in his chest, and snaked his hand into his pillowcase until his fingers found a small, flat object. He closed his fist around it, withdrew it, and slid it deep into the pocket of his trousers.

He didn't know why he still carried Kineth's rank bar. He should have thrown it out. He had stopped deserving to carry it ten weeks ago, when it had first been concealed in the crisp pocket of a Sith uniform rather than the ragged pocket of a son of the Republic. But though he knew he had lost his right to carry it, he could not let it go.

"Think fast."

Dustil sat up at light speed and caught the bread roll that came hurtling toward him from the other end of the barracks, though his abused muscles screamed in pain a heartbeat later when they caught on to what he was doing. Jor waltzed in behind it, grinning.

"Old time's sake," he said, and threw himself onto his bunk. "Semic's got it in for you, man, doesn't he?"

Dustil ate the roll at top speed, before anyone could come back and give the two of them hell. "I know," he said, wiping his mouth and brushing the crumbs off his bed. "I didn't even do anything."

"Nah. Doesn't matter what you do." Jor shut his eyes and sighed. "He just hates your living guts."

"You're real encouraging."

"I try. Hey – Hull was interesting out there, right?"

Dustil frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well, no offense, but he could have knocked you unconscious in about half a second if he wanted to, so it was a little odd that he didn't."

"Maybe he was tired."

"Yeah, maybe. He was pretty quiet in the mess."

But Jor had piqued Dustil's interest. His comment, coupled with the fact that Hull hadn't abused him earlier about the push ups, cast the giant ensign in a curious light. "What, uh… what's his story?"

"Who, Hull?" said Jor. "I dunno… pretty sure he joined up by choice, though. He's from some farm world. Probably just wanted to get off his rock and see the galaxy."

"Huh."

"Anyway, you got his eye pretty good. He's got a serious shiner."

"Yeah?"

Jor laughed. "Yeah, and you've got two."

Dustil felt the tender lumps around his eyes and groaned a little. "Great," he muttered. "Just great."

"Ah, it's no big deal," said Jor, stretching out. "The ladies like a man of action. Wait till we get to the cantina and they get a hold of you."

Dustil's face grew warm beneath his fingertips, an entirely different warmth from that of swelling bruises. They hadn't left the base since coming to Andros, but the promise of some measure of freedom loomed ahead. Training had formally ended, and patrols were due to begin – but it wasn't patrolling that had Dustil's fellows heady with anticipation. With patrols came leave time, and with leave time came leisure trips into the city. None of the unit had been shy about planning their exploits, most of which involved copious drinking and the purchase of intimate female company.

Dustil hadn't much chimed in.

The next morning, Lieutenant Semic woke them before dawn with a shrill whistle that brought the entire unit to its feet. They stood at attention at the ends of their beds, bleary-eyed with exhaustion, and Dustil prayed that he would be ignored. For once, he got his wish.

Almost.

"Fortunately for all of you," said Semic, "this base will be visited by the Admiral within the month, which means that patrols will need to be at full capacity. Beginning today, you'll fully equip your weapons and take your posts. Congratulations. You're no longer completely worthless. Ensign Bodock."

"Yes, sir."

"Report to Captain Terellian after mess. Ensign Chambers."

"Yes, sir."

"Report to Lieutenant Frick."

As Semic rattled down the alphabet, Dustil listened to the assignments and waited for his own name.

"Recruit Onasi."

"Yes, sir."

"Report directly to me."

Dustil's fists clenched involuntarily, but he kept himself in check. None of the others had been told to report to Semic.

"Yes, sir."

A few minutes later, Jor had been assigned to Captain Terellian's group, and they were dismissed to the mess. Dustil ate breakfast along with his unit, quietly seething as he chewed. As they parted to report to their patrol officers, he exchanged one dark and furtive look with Jor, and then they went their separate ways across the courtyard. Dustil headed straight for Semic, allowing himself to show no trace of the fury he felt. He stopped before his lieutenant and snapped his heels together.

"Reporting for duty, Lieutenant Semic sir."

"You can drop the act, Onasi." Semic looked at him with open hatred. "You think I believe for one second that you know your place? I _know _your kind. You're so high on yourself you can barely walk. You think the whole world owes you a favor. But that's all going to change."

Dustil knew it was foolish to rise to the bait, and so he maintained his posture of attention. "Yes, sir."

"Yes, _sir_," Semic mocked. "I don't think you mean it, Onasi. Say it again."

"Yes, sir."

"Louder."

"_Yes, sir_."

Semic laughed at him. "How does that feel, Onasi? How do you like being obedient to me?" Semic paused. "_Answer_."

Dustil grappled for words that would not betray his rage.

"However you want it to feel, sir."

"I hope so." Semic looked viciously amused. "Because I want it to hurt. I want you to swallow your pride until there isn't any left, and then I want to watch you grovel in the dirt like the little runt you are. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Onasi?"

"Yes, sir." The words came through gritted teeth.

"You lying little son of a bitch." Semic laughed at him again. "Do I have that about right, Onasi? The son of some bitch from some backwater planet? Is that what you are?"

Dustil's fists were so tight he thought his fingers would break. Into his mind flashed the image of his mother, standing in front of his house, lit by the weak sun, smiling at him. It had been a year since he had cast that last look at her, but suddenly she was right there with him, watching him. Listening to him.

"No," he heard himself say.

It had been a long time since he'd been cracked in the face with the end of a blaster, but the sensation was surprisingly familiar. The difference was that, this time, he didn't need a wall to hold him up. He stayed on his feet and felt the blood run into his eyes.

"Rethink your answer," Semic said softly.

But Dustil had reached his limit. "No."

The second crack to his head was more brutal, and Dustil staggered back. He'd be killed if he struck out in retaliation, and so he left his own blaster in its harness and kept his hands at his sides. He wouldn't fight. But he wouldn't let this nothing of a man make him degrade his own mother.

"Show me _respect_, you little swine."

"No –"

Semic struck him again, and then again, and Dustil went to his knees in the dirt.

"That's better," Semic said roughly. "Now answer the question."

"No."

Dustil endured another series of blows, and he fell to his side as the world faded in and out, nothing but shapes, dark and light. His cheek pressed the ground. The lieutenant was going to beat him to death; he knew it, and he felt like a fool for allowing a man like Semic to get the better of him so easily. But for the first time in many weeks, he did not feel ashamed of the words that were coming out of his mouth. At least he had that much.

"Lieutenant."

Dustil heard an unfamiliar voice above him. He strained to see who it was, but his eyes were full of blood and salt.

"Yes, sir."

Dustil bit back a satisfied laugh. It was one of Semic's superiors. It felt good to hear him answer someone else with the blind obedience he demanded of the recruits.

"Put the boy in a helmet and send him on his rounds. If these idiots don't know what they're doing by the time the Admiral arrives, it won't be my head. It'll be yours. Don't go killing any of them until we can afford it."

"Yes, sir."

"On your feet, boy."

Dustil wasn't sure how he managed to obey, but he wiped the blood out of his eyes and pushed himself to his feet. The officer thrust a helmet into his hands. It nearly threw him off balance, but he fought to stay upright. The world was still swimming.

"Put that on."

Dustil did as he was told, trying in vain to keep the hard edges from touching his battered and burning face. Once the helmet eclipsed his features, he allowed himself to look at Semic with unbridled and triumphant hatred. Semic looked back at him, his pockmarked face taut and furious. But there was nothing he could do.

Beneath his visor, Dustil smiled horribly, and felt blood trickle warm down his lower lip.

"Now get him out on patrol," said the officer. "I've got enough on my hands."

"Yes, sir."

Dustil watched the officer stride across the courtyard toward his own patrol, all of whom were unidentifiable in their full Sith uniforms, their faces eclipsed by smooth, silver visors.

"About face," barked Semic furiously. "March."

Dustil turned and marched through the courtyard, fighting dizziness and his swimming vision with every step, but determined not to falter. He passed through the gates and out of the training compound, into the larger Sith base area, and then beyond that too, out into the streets of the capital city of Andros.

It took some time for him to master the nausea, and then the waves of rising pain, but the training they'd all endured for the last few months served him well. Once he was able to get his legs moving on autpilot, he tried to focus through the dizziness by focusing on the city around him.

It was so different from anywhere Dustil had ever been. His community on Telos had been quiet and low to the ground, a neat and attractive series of planned neighborhood compounds that circled the Republic base. By contrast, the capital city of Andros stretched high around him on all sides, its dark and complex building systems glittering in the summer sunlight like giant, ill-matched insects. There were endless structures, none of which seemed to have been built at the same time or planned by the same mind. Most appeared to have been constructed haphazardly and squeezed into the last remaining spaces, dangerously high and narrow, pressed against each other in upright stacks of all heights. Dustil could barely see the sky; it was just a strip of bright blue, running like a road overhead between the clustering rows of high rises that stretched forward on either side of him. He wondered how, with so little room for the light to shine down on him, he could still swelter in its heat.

The citizens of Andros were equally fascinating. Dustil wasn't totally unused to being in the company of non-humans; his core subjects teacher had been a Bothan, and their music teacher had been a Bith. But never in his life had he seen such a variety of aliens going about their business – within ten minutes' time, he had seen an Ithorian come out of a merchant building and a group of Rodians disappear into a cantina behind a Quarren. He shot a dirty look at a pair of Twi'leks without meaning to do it – he hadn't seen a Twi'lek since one had cut him with her lightsaber, and the sudden flash of memory was very unpleasant. Dustil was surprised when the Twi'leks shot him an equally dirty look in reply and crossed the road away from him. They couldn't have seen his face, behind his visor, so he wasn't sure what their problem was. He watched them go with interest, then realized, with a slam of his gut, that they had crossed the road precisely _because_ of his visor. Because of his whole uniform.

Because he was a Sith.

Dustil's hand moved involuntarily to his blaster, just to feel it there. He was a helmeted Sith, and he was armed, and they had no idea who he really was. They didn't care about his story, or what had brought him here. They only knew that he was dangerous.

His head pounded. Whether it was from Semic's beating, the heat of the sun, or the rebellion of his conscience, he couldn't really tell. He spent the rest of his patrol with his eyes on the citizens of Andros, watching their expressions turn furious or fearful when they caught sight of him. Watching them try to step back into the shadows and slip out of his range of vision unnoticed, before he could pay them any attention.

He knew exactly how they felt.

He couldn't believe he was causing them all to feel it.

That night, he slept so soundly that he had to be shaken awake in the morning.

"Dustil – hey, _Onasi_ –" Jor sounded anxious. "Do you think should we call a medic?"

"Look at the worried _lover_. Why don't you give him a little kiss, Reymark? Wake him up with a smile."

It was Ensign Chambers's voice, and his remark was followed by sniggering from several of the others in the unit. Chambers was relatively short, but extremely muscular, with a wide grin that always looked more malicious than cheerful. Dustil opened his eyes to glare at him.

But one of his eyes didn't open. He tried to blink – nothing happened. He felt a stab of panic and reached up to feel his left eye.

It was swollen shut, a hot, raised hill of flesh beneath his fingertips.

Dustil cursed in terror and sat up, trying to pry his eyelids apart with his fingers, staring around wildly at the rest of his unit with the only eye that worked, as many of them laughed at him. His whole face was pounding – and his _head_. It felt like a ship had landed on it. Dustil groaned in pain as the vision in his good eye began to swim.

"Did… I do that? In the pit?"

It was Hull's voice this time, and in it there was a shadow of worry.

"Oh _hell _no." Chambers sounded highly entertained. "He mouthed off to the lieutenant and got his face bashed in, right out in the yard – didn't you see it?"

"No…"

"Pf. You missed a good show. Onasi couldn't keep his mouth shut, so the lieutenant split his lips."

Dustil's fingertips crept to his mouth. As Chambers had suggested, it too was swollen, and the skin of his lips was torn in more than one place.

"Don't look all sorry for him," said Chambers, with disgust. "The stupid ass couldn't swallow a couple insults, so he got cracked with a blaster. He brought it on himself. It's not like the rest of us don't get hell from the lieutenant. Onasi's a moron."

Dustil cursed again as his fingers continued to travel over his face and head, sussing out the damage. He was nothing but a series of painful, swollen lumps. He couldn't imagine what he looked like.

"You're… black and purple," said Jor under his breath. "What the hell happened?"

"Nothing."

"Nerf sh –"

"Get the hell _up_, Onasi," said Chambers threateningly. "If you keep us from getting a meal, I'll beat your head in myself."

Dustil got up. Not because of Chambers, but because he wanted to make sure the rest of his body still worked; the fact that his eye would not open was horrible and frightening. He stumbled into his uniform and made his bed, dismissing Jor's assistance. Barely, he managed to bring himself to attention just seconds before Lieutenant Semic walked in.

"According to the captain, you'll be on patrol today without babysitters." Semic sounded distinctly displeased with the announcement. "You're on your own – you'll be paired up after breakfast." He paced between them, his eyes narrow. "But I'll be _watching_ you. One toe out of line, and I'll break your legs. And that's not a threat. It's a promise."

He stopped in front of Dustil and looked at him with pleasure.

"Onasi already knows that, don't you, Onasi?"

For one furious moment, Dustil almost did not answer. But another blow to his head might have blinded him, and he knew it.

"Yes, sir."

Semic smiled with all his dull teeth. "Good," he said quietly. "You've learned your lesson." He swept his eyes over Dustil's swollen eyes and mouth, and then he laughed. "Shame about your face. It's a shame about his face, isn't it, Chambers?"

"Terrible shame, sir," said Chambers, grinning.

"What was it you said in the mess last night about it?"

"I said I guessed he thought his mother would be along to wipe it up for him, sir."

"But she's not here, is she, Chambers?"

"Haven't seen her, sir."

"No." Lieutenant Semic laughed again. "Get in your lines."

The unit lined up and filed out of the barracks behind Semic. Dustil fell into the back of the line, behind Hull and beside Jor, walking slowly to make up for his lack of vision. Without the depth perception afforded him by two eyes, it wasn't long before he smacked into the end of one of the bunks. He hissed with pain and kept going.

"What happened?" Jor pressed him again, hanging back slightly from the group. "We were already gone, I didn't see –"

"He called my mother a bitch," Dustil muttered. "Forget it."

Before him, Hull came to a halt.

Dustil nearly slammed into him. "What?" he said irritably. "Go."

But Hull only turned his head and cast a brief look over his massive shoulder. His eyes flicked from bruise to bruise on Dustil's face, and after a moment, he nodded in something like approval.

"There's lines you don't cross."

It was all he said. He faced front again and continued to march, and Dustil watched the back of his head, gratified in spite of himself. He knew it was foolish, but he felt a flash of goodwill toward the giant ensign, and a prideful surge within himself. He hadn't backed down. Maybe he'd suffered for it, but there _were_ lines that shouldn't have been crossed.

"You really want to get killed, don't you?" Jor asked under his breath, casting a sidelong, worried look at Dustil, as they marched out into the bare light of dawn. It was already hot; hazy steam rose from the dewy grass.

Dustil glared at Jor with his good eye.

"I'm serious," Jor insisted. "He's been waiting for you to give him a reason, and you walked right into it. It's not worth it."

Dustil didn't answer.


End file.
